Cardinal Health's SomnoStar Orbit

Jeff Wyscarver, RPSGT
Product Manager, Sleep Diagnostics
Cardinal Health
Yorba Linda, CA

LEADING TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOMNOSTAR

For several years there has been pressure on CMS to add the unattended sleep study to its list of diagnostic tools available to healthcare providers. At the same time insurance companies have been reducing reimbursement levels for polysomnography. We felt it was simply a matter of time before home sleep testing became accepted practice and so we embarked on developing a Type III device based on the technology that the sleep community was currently using when diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): A pressure transducer for flow and snoring, Nonin pulse oximetery and RIP bands for respiratory effort. Our efforts resulted in the release of the SomnoStar Orbit three days before CMS finalized its decision to allow home sleep testing for the diagnosis of OSA.

SENSOR TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION

The SomnoStar Orbit is unique in its combination of accepted PSG sensor technology and a simple-to-use portable platform. In our first design meeting we agreed that a patient should be able to attach the sensors with little instruction. We believe we accomplished this goal by greatly simplifying the hook-up while at the same time incorporating accepted sensor technology.

BENEFITING SLEEP PROFESSIONALS

The sleep professional was taken into consideration in the basic design of the SomnoStar Orbit in that the platform is flexible, giving the user the ability to collect data typically associated with type IV devices, finger probes and flow for testing. The same device then can be used the next night to collect 9 channels of data on a patient using positive pressure therapy for a follow-up study. The SomnoStar application can autoscore the data and give a report in a matter of minutes or use the full featured scoring and reporting capability to review waveforms, epoch by epoch.

BRINGING HOMECARE PROVIDERS AND HOSPITALS TOGETHER

We expect that the SomnoStar Orbit will foster collaboration between existing hospital-based sleep labs and homecare providers by sharing in the care of patients suffering with OSA. The home care professionals have greater access to the patient home environment and the sleep facilities have experience analyzing patient data. Fostering collaboration between these two groups will better serve the patient population and present an opportunity to improve the overall economic stability of the sleep field.

For more information, please visit www.viasyshealthcare.com

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