Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC) - Baltimore, Maryland

GBMC Respiratory Care

Services Offered

The respiratory care department provides comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic services for inpatients and outpatients in all age-specific populations from premature newborn to geriatrics.

Diagnostic Services

The respiratory care department provides the following diagnostic/monitoring services for in and outpatients:

• Oximetry monitoring
• End-tidal CO2 monitoring
• Serial peak flow monitoring
• Bedside spirometry
• Vital capacity/negative inspiratory force measurement
• Pulmonary function tests (link to pulmonary function lab)

Therapeutic Services
All traditional forms of medically prescribed oxygen and respiratory care are available including:

• Oxygen therapy
• Heliox therapy
• Aerosolized medication administration including bronchodilators and antibiotics
• Mobilization of secretions including postural drainage, inflation and expansion therapy and positive expiratory pressure (PEP) therapy, CPAP and BiPAP
• Endo- and naso-tracheal suctioning
• Respiratory assessments
• Airway care/endotracheal intubations
• Ventilator management in Adult and Neonatal Intensive Care Units
• BCLS qualified therapists who respond to all CPR and Rapid Response Team calls

Clinical Laboratory Services
The Respiratory Care Department's arterial blood gas labs are accredited by the College of American Pathologists and offer the following diagnostic tests:

• Arterial blood gas measurement
• Co-oximetry including carboxyhemoglobin, methemoglobin measurement.
• Pleural fluid ph

Respiratory Therapists are available to all units 24/7 and assigned to respond to each unit through the hospital's paging system. For all GBMC units, the hospital operator may be contacted to have the covering respiratory therapist paged, or patients may page by dialing 3135, then 5XX as the pager number, XX being the unit number.

Departmental policies and procedures have been established to ensure that the proper evaluation, monitoring and safe utilization of therapy, as established collaboratively with other departments and in compliance with the Joint Commission and third-party payer medical necessity guidelines.

Comprehensive intensive respiratory care is provided in all critical care units (adult and neonatal). Services offered include:

• Protocol-regulated mechanical ventilation
• In-unit blood gas sampling and analysis
• Non-invasive ventilation
• Heliox therapy

The respiratory therapist is directly legally responsible for ventilator documentation and alarm settings and is the only person authorized to make changes to mechanical settings.