Annual Meeting Minutes - September 09, 2008
PO Box 28686
Las Vegas NV 89126
Nevada Society for Respiratory Care
This annual business meeting of the Nevada Society for Respiratory Care was held on
Tuesday September 9, 2008. It was held at The Orleans Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV at
the close of the NSRC 2008 Conference. It was facilitated via conference bridge at The
Orleans via phone number (702) 365-7090.

Board Members Present (Current and Incoming): Pam Biglow-Hearst, Gerard Marshall,
Sandy Ollivier, Karen Shaw, Lori Johnston, Peggy Alby, Chuck Graham, Connie Small, Bonnie
Weaver, Roger Moorhead.

Audience Present: Greg Roaldson, Denise Warrick, Kevita White-Leslie, Alex Carabajal, Lisa
Suhaney, Dan Small, Troy Gerrard, Jill Wood, Joseph Guyerly, Sean Manguray, Joana
Montals, Cecelia Degenhart, Gary Steinert, Susan Flamm.

Call to Order: Immediate Past-President Gerard Marshall called the meeting to order at 12:50
pm. A quorum was established.

Induction of New Officers: The new officers were inducted into their posts. The newly elected
officers are as follows: President Pam Biglow-Hearst, President-Elect Lori Johnston,
Delegate Chuck Graham, Directors-at-Large Bonnie Weaver and Karen Shaw. Sandy Ollivier
was re-elected as Vice President. Connie Small was re-elected as Secretary-Treasurer. John
Steinmetz continues to serve as Delegate. Peggy Alby and Roger Moorhead still serve as
Directors-at-Large. Luvell Henderson begins his term as Immediate Past-President. Expired
terms for Directors-at-Large are those of Mary Finayev and Lori Johnston. The Board
welcomes the new officers to their positions, and thanks the exiting officers for their service.

Pam B. accepted her position as president, and chaired the remainder of the meeting. John
S. provided the audience a brief overview of the rules of order in conducting Board meetings.

Approval of Minutes: The minutes from the meeting held on August 19, 2008 were reviewed
and presented for approval. A correction was noted in the Treasurer’s Report. The check to be
received from Pulmonary Associates was corrected to be $1200.00, not $1000.00 as the
minutes currently read. With the correction, Sandy O. moved to approve the minutes. Lori J.
seconded it. All were in favor.
Treasurer’s Report: The treasurer’s report was presented for review. For the benefit of the general membership, Connie S. gave a
brief overview of the report and explained the processes involved in approving reimbursement of expenses, signers for the checking
account, where funds come from and what they are used for. The current checking account balance is $5280.13. This balance does
not reflect any proceeds taken in after 9/5/2008. Also, there will be further expenses associated with the conference that will need to
be subtracted from the balance.

Lori J. submitted receipts and requested reimbursement for costs associated with the conference. The receipts total $237.69. Bonnie
W. moved to approve these expenses. Motion seconded by Connie S. Motion approved. Denise W. submitted receipts for conference
expenses totaling $77.41. Lori J. moved to approve these expenses. Connie S. seconded it. All were in favor. Bonnie W. will be
presenting receipts at the next meeting for her expenses related to the conference. These include fees for rental of the buzzer system
for the Sputum Bowl, hotel room for James Fink, plus other expenses. These expenses were already approved for reimbursement at
the last meeting.

Bonnie W. made a motion to approve the purchase of a spa package for Paula Steinmetz in recognition for all of the work she
contributed to the success of the conference. Bonnie suggested a package in the price range of $125-150.00. Connie S. seconded
the motion. John S. abstained from voting, otherwise all were in favor. Motion approved.

Conference Analysis and Review: The Board thanks all of the committee members who were responsible for the planning of the
NSRC Conference 2008. Special mention was made to Bonnie W., Denise Warrick, Alex Carabajal, Kevita White-Leslie, Peggy A., and
Connie S. We also thank Paula Steinmetz as an unofficial committee member, but without her help, it would not have been possible.

Bonnie W. commended the student competitors in the first annual Nevada Student Sputum Bowl competition. Pima Medical Institute
and Apollo College each had two student teams competing in a double elimination competition. The teams did a great job. Apollo’s
Team One won the competition. They will now have the opportunity to represent Nevada on a national level at the AARC International
Congress in Anaheim, CA this December. The winning team members are: Julian Chavez, Ron Gillette, and Donovan Delos Santos.
Bonnie challenged the practicing RCPs to put together a team for next year’s competition.

John S. suggested a post-conference meeting of committee members for wrap-up/analysis and to prepare the financial report. With
the success of the conference, Sandy O. suggested that the NSRC provide some financial assistance to the winning student Sputum
Bowl team for their trip to Anaheim. Once a financial report is prepared, the Board will be in a better position to make that
determination, and to what extent it could assist. Sandy O. moved to place this on the agenda for the next meeting. Lori J. seconded.
All were in favor.

The Board discussed sending “thank you” cards to all the vendors, sponsors and speakers at the conference. All agreed that this
should be done. Peggy A. also suggested that everyone present at this meeting should sign the signage from the business lunch
noting the sponsorship of Pulmonary Associates, and return it to them as a memento of our appreciation. The sign was subsequently
passed around the room for all to sign.

Alex C. brought up the idea of a Spring conference on neonatal/pediatric respiratory care. There was interest in this suggestion, with
Dan Small volunteering to help. This suggestion should also be discussed at the post-conference analysis meeting. John S.
motioned that the Education Committee be included on the October agenda. It is important to discuss all avenues of promoting
respiratory care. Karen Shaw seconded the motion. All were in favor.

BME Advisor List: Roger Moorhead has gotten in touch with Ramon Seelbach in regard to his interest in being on a reserve list as a
BME advisor in the event of a resignation of a current advisor. Ramon is interested in being on this list. Also, Roger has Bert Stander
to add to the list. So far, Danny Warren has not responded to John S.’ inquiries. At this time, the reserve list consists of: John Leyva,
Roger Moorhead, Ramon Seelbach, and Bert Stander. Currently serving as BME advisors are: John Steinmetz, Kirk Smith, Peggy Alby,
Arthur Little, and Don Rider.

Other Business, Board & Membership Discussion: Cecelia Degenhart brought up concerns regarding the turn-around time for state
licensure applications for graduating students. In one particular example, a student applied for licensure in July and still has not
received anything from the state. Peggy A. responded to her concern, stating that average time for licensure is 4-6 weeks, however,
certain things can delay the process. For example, if a person is from outside the U.S., or if a person has a long work history prior to
respiratory school, or if there were any legal issues, these things can delay the application procedure. The licensing board needs to
exercise due diligence in granting licenses to practice. It was also suggested that the applicant call the licensing board directly to find
out what may be holding up the application. It may be that a school didn’t mail a transcript or something simple like that. In such a
case, the applicant can just re-request their school to send the appropriate information. By communicating with the board, the
applicant can discover what may be done to facilitate the process. Another suggestion was to sign a release to have a liaison act as
an intermediary with the Board on the applicant’s behalf. The best advice is to keep in contact with the Board. They are responsive to
inquiries, and will do what they can to assist an applicant in completing the process.

Denise Warrick discussed the role of the Political Advocacy Contact Team (PACT) for the benefit of the general membership present.
Denise and Sandy O. act as Nevada’s PACT members. They are co-sponsored by the AARC and NSRC, and they assist in promoting
legislative actions that may affect and/or enhance the respiratory care profession. Cheryl West is the director of legislative affairs at
the AARC. She coordinates a lobbying effort every March, in which PACT members (2 sponsored by the AARC from each state)
descend on Washington, DC for an intensive day of meetings with state representatives and their aides. Appointments are set-up in
advance by the PACT members with their legislative representatives. At these meetings they have an opportunity to discuss the AARC’
s agenda for our profession and our patients.
Some recent successes of their lobbying efforts resulted in the passage of the Pulmonary Rehab bill. Prior to the passage of this bill,
there was no standard interpretation for pulmonary rehab nationally. Coverage was nonexistent in many areas despite evidence of its
benefits to our patients. Now there is a uniform definition of it with specific guidelines for coverage to begin in 2010. Passage of this
bill took several years of persistent lobbying. Also, in recent legislation, competitive bidding for Medicare services got delayed; and the
cap for oxygen rental was removed.
Another function of the PACT members is to activate Plan 435. In the U.S. there are 435 congressional districts. In this plan, each
state has an AARC member assigned to each district. Sandy O. covers the northern part of the state served by Dean Heller. Denise is
in charge of Shelley Berkley’s district, and John Steinmetz covers Jon Porter’s district. Sandy, Denise and John are charged with
calling on the membership to get involved in letter writing to our representatives. We need each person to get involved. Letter writing
can be done via the AARC website. They make the process very easy. These issues are very important and affect our patients and our
profession. The efforts of the AARC’s letter writing campaign along with the PACT’s Washington, DC efforts helped pass the
Pulmonary Rehab bill.

Peggy Alby, as one of the advisors to the Board of Medical Examiners, has been presented with a concern that the board is seeking
respiratory’s input on. There had been a situation where an RT needle-aspirated a neonate for presence of a pneumothorax. There
had been some physician opposition to this. The RCP practice act does not specifically list practices that respiratory care cannot
perform, nor does the NSRC belief that it should. It was suggested that some research needs to be done into what the AARC’s
position is on this practice. Is it within our scope of practice? What are the community and industry standards? What is done in other
facilities? Is it done under direct supervision of a physician? What is management willing to risk? As with all procedures, competency
must be demonstrated. The question of emergent vs. non-emergent action must also be considered.  
Another issue the BME is seeking advice on is the question of regulating sleep technicians. Presently, in Nevada, there are no
training requirements for polysomnographers, except that they have a valid BLS card. The NRS/NAC state what RCPs are licensed to
perform, but they do not state what other entities are or are not allowed to perform. RCPs are licensed to administer CPAP and oxygen
therapy, however it does not exclude other professions from doing so. They do state that another entity cannot represent themselves
as respiratory therapists. Does the BME need to address the issue of polysomnography training/licensing? Once again, more
research is needed on this issue regarding the industry/community/AARC standards of care.
Peggy would like these items brought up for further discussion at the next NSRC meeting after we have had time to research them
further. After discussion of these issues, it was agreed that the NSRC should provide feedback as a unified voice on issues
concerning the Board of Medical Examiners. Peggy will keep us informed on what the BME concerns are via email.

Sandy O. would like to put together an ethics seminar/chili cook-off in Reno like what was done last year in Las Vegas. She still has
details that would need to be worked out, but is requesting the event be sanctioned by the NSRC. It would be a fund-raising function.
Bonnie W. motioned that an ethics seminar/chili cook-off presented in Reno be sponsored by the NSRC. Connie S. seconded it. All
were in favor.

The audience was asked to give input on what the NSRC could do for them. Also, how can we increase membership? The
membership present had no feedback to offer at this time.

Meeting dates and times were discussed briefly. All agreed that the third Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm is acceptable to continue
regular board meetings. There was no further business. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday October 21st, 2008 at 7:00 pm at
Kindred Hospital.

Adjournment: John S. moved to adjourn the meeting. Peggy A. seconded it. All were in favor. Meeting adjourned at 2:25 pm.