Certificate program fuels next gen of suppliers 

LUBBOCK, Texas - NRRTS has completed nearly 50% of its CRT Supplier Certificate Program, now offering courses 1-6 on its website.  

The goal is to complete all 14 courses by the end of 2023. 

“The more we finish, the more excited we get," said Weesie Walker, executive director of NRRTS. “The way it's laid out—it’s easy for us to go back and update, add or take away things as they change.” 

The courses, which range from one to three hours long, must be taken in chronological order, because they build on each other. For example, the next course, course 7, explores the application of postural support and refers back to sitting balance, a topic from course 2. 

The most recent course, course 6, explores the six most common diagnoses seen by CRT suppliers, as well as contextual information about patient impairments and how they should work with them. 

“We know that a lot of people who become suppliers don't have any kind of medical background, so if you see somebody with a stroke, you're going to have an understanding of what happened to that person that caused a paralysis on one side of the body,” said Walker. 

Once the 14 courses are completed, the final step is to get the program accredited. NRRTS has been approved as an accredited provider for the International Association for Continuing Education and Training since 2016. 

“We have a lot of extremely talented people in our industry, but a lot of people are getting older and they’re moving on to retirement or what have you, and (taking that) tribal knowledge (with them),” said Walker. "So, the things we can teach to the new people are hopefully contained in this course."