CPAP compliance can be hard to maintain. Often defined as “using therapy for an average of 4 hours a night for at least 70% of the nights,” CPAP compliance varies among patients, with between 29% and 83% patients not meeting this criteria. According to a Sleep Review article, practices to successfully using a CPAP include early and ongoing education, compliance monitoring and efficacy, long-term support and trouble-shooting.
CPAPs generally come with built-in smart cards and compliance data can be sent via email or uploaded to a Website post-therapy. According to a recent HME News article, a company called National Sleep Therapy is doing something right to improve compliance among their patients. It has developed software that tracks patient data in real time. That means the CPAP provider can easily step in if there is a problem such as a mask leak or a high apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) number. It also lets the provider see if the patient begins to slip in compliance. Data already collected by National Sleep Therapy using this software showed nearly 90% of its patients were successfully complying with their CPAP therapy.
Not only are they tracking real-time compliance data, National Sleep Therapy also uses an iPad to introduce and educate patients about sleep apnea and CPAP use, operation and maintenance.
Pretty cool.
I have met with several people from National Sleep Therapy and as a Respiratory Therapist who owns a sleep center, I was was impressed with them and their use of technology as they understand the importance of patient understanding and compliance! Love to see this article, thanks for sharing it!
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