Ambulatory Sleep Diagnostic Program for Physicians

Objective: to assist the general medical community in the detection and treatment of sleep disorders.

Background: Given the amount of time spent by each attending physician with their patients, the issue of sleep disorder is seldom discussed in the course of a general consultation although clinically, sleep disorders, sleep apnea in particular, have been one of the main culprits in some of the more common diseases that affect us on a daily basis. Diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, cardiac heart failures, obesity, most forms of neurological disorders etc. have strong clinical links to sleep disorders.

Not only is the time spent to discuss these issues limited, but the diagnostic procedure one has to undertake is highly disruptive to the patient’s daily routine. Spending an entire evening doing a sleep study involves some hardship and inconvenience to the busy patient’s lifestyle.

In previous years, there was a big discrepancy in the quality of diagnostic data one gets from a sleep laboratory compared to an ambulatory home study. Over the years, as technology improves, the convergence of technologies began to narrow the gap particularly as it relates to the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea. The “brick and mortar” sleep lab is still is considered as the “gold” standard for clinical diagnosis. Redwood sleep Center believes that the role of the traditional lab has been elevated to diagnose more complex cases of sleep disorders such as central sleep apnea and other medical co-morbid complexities associated with obstructive sleep apnea.

When Medicare was debating whether to reimburse for home testing, most sleep labs felt threatened. Redwood Sleep Center, on the other hand, believes that there is definitely a place for both processes to coexist. It is in this context that Redwood Sleep Center developed The Ambulatory Sleep Diagnostic Program for Physicians.