CRCE versus Contact Hours

Many respiratory therapists often are confused between the AARC's CRCE® and contact hours of education. They are calculated differently, and often confused. To help with this, please see some of the information below. 

Contact Hours

A contact hour of continuing education is when there is 50 consecutive clock minutes of academic course work, online or correspondence course or seminar/workshop. This means that for every 50 minutes of education, you earn 1 contact hours. 

Q: What about if the lecture I participated in was 60 minutes long, how many contact hours did I earn?

A: You earned 1.2 contact hours. To calculate this, take 60 and divide it by 50. This equals 1.2.

CRCE®

AARC's CRCE contact hour is defined as 60 minutes of learning activity. This means that for every 60 minutes of education, you earn 1 CRCE. 

Q: What about if the lecture I participated in was 60 minutes long, how many CRCEs did I earn?

A: You earned 1 CRCE.

Q: What about if the lecture I participated in was 50 minutes long, how many CRCEs did I earn?

A: You earned 0.83 CRCE. To calcuate this, take 50 and divide it by 60. This equals 0.83. 

CEU's

We often call our continuing education, CEUs. Did you know that 1 CEU is actually 10 contact hours of education? CEU stands for Continuing Education Unit. A CEU is a unit of credit equal to ten hours of participation in an approved educational activity.

We hope that this helps you when determining if you have enough continuing education to maintain your license. Remember, if you are an AARC Member, all CRCE approved courses are tracked in your AARC Membership account. Visit www.aarc.org to look up your records.