RQI Partners LLC, the partnership between the American Heart Association® and Laerdal Medical, announced its suite of digital training and education programs designed for 9-1-1 dispatchers and telecommunicators, RQI® Telecommunicator CPR (RQI T-CPR), meets the state requirements for initial licensure training and continuing education compliance, set by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE).
A state agency charged with establishing minimum standards regarding competence and reliability in education, training and licensing for law enforcement, corrections and telecommunications professionals, TCOLE recognizes the RQI T-CPR program as meeting the learning objectives for TCOLE’s Cardiac Emergency Communication Course No. 786. The course results from Texas House Bill 786, which requires all 9-1-1 dispatchers and telecommunicators in the state to receive and complete training in telecommunicator CPR. The law went into effect September 2021.
Texas House Bill 786 requires that telecommunicator licensure and continuing education training and courses:
- Use the most current nationally recognized emergency cardiovascular care guidelines.
- Incorporate recognition protocols for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
- Provide information on best practices for relaying compression-only CPR instructions to callers.
The RQI T-CPR program is based on the nationally recognized American Heart Association Guidelines for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care, the official resuscitation guidelines used by all other training providers nationwide. The program is uniquely qualified to meet the requirements of this legislation and holds the distinction as the only T-CPR program that has been vetted by Association scientists and educators.
“The statistics on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest occurrences and survival bring great urgency to optimizing every link in the chain of survival and preparing providers to deliver peak, high-quality performance, beginning with 9-1-1 dispatchers and telecommunicators — the first first responders,” said Matt Zavadsky, chief transformation officer at MedStar Mobile Healthcare, which implemented RQI T-CPR last spring. “TCOLE’s recognition brings another level of validity to the efficacy of RQI T-CPR and how the program positions these professionals to convey CPR instructions effectively to help save more lives.”
More than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur in the U.S. annually. About 90% of people who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest die. CPR, especially if performed immediately, can double or triple a cardiac arrest victim’s chance of survival. Research shows that resuscitation knowledge and skills, including the ability to recognize and manage a cardiac arrest event, decay in one to six months following training, which may result in a delay, or failure, to initiate telecommunicator CPR.
Available in three tiers — Essentials, Challenger and Responder — RQI T-CPR is rooted in the Resuscitation Quality Improvement® (RQI) program, which is co-developed by the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives for all, and Laerdal, one of the world leaders in medical simulation and resuscitation training.
Course content and the three learning levels can help public safety telecommunicators achieve mastery, verified competence and confidence — the hallmarks of the RQI program — in high-quality telephone CPR delivery and cardiac arrest recognition. Bringing increased effectiveness and efficiency to the learning experience, telecommunicators can enroll in entry, intermediate and advanced instruction, and upon course completion, will receive an American Heart Association T-CPR course certificate of completion or e-credential.
“We are excited our RQI T-CPR programs have