May 16, 2018 — Itamar Medical Ltd. announced the launch of SleePath, the first integrated e-health sleep apnea care pathway monitoring system to monitor atrial fibrillation (AF) patients’ sleep apnea management status and compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices on demand.
Effective management of sleep apnea is essential for improving outcomes in patients with AF, a type of irregular heartbeat that affects 6 million individuals in the United States. SleePath was unveiled at Heart Rhythm 2018, the annual meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society, May 9-12 in Boston.
Sleep apnea occurs in roughly 50 percent of patients with AF; it is found in a higher proportion of AF patients scheduled for catheter ablation, a minimally invasive procedure commonly used to treat AF, which eliminates the cells that give rise to irregular heartbeat. In AF patients with sleep apnea, catheter ablation is most effective when used in conjunction with adherence to a CPAP regimen.
“Effective management of sleep apnea is now believed to be critical for controlling atrial fibrillation post-ablation. The ability for us, the electrophysiologists, to assess patients’ sleep apnea status and their adherence to CPAP on demand and correlating it to the AF manifestations is a big help,” said Elad Anter, M.D., of Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston. “The information that SleePath provides is important for achieving optimal outcomes following catheter ablation. Knowing that a patient isn’t using their CPAP as prescribed is an important first step in opening a dialog with the sleep experts that can identify obstacles and help improve adherence.”
Utilizing data from the Philips Respironics CPAP machines, SleePath includes a Cardio Sleep Dashboard that allows physicians to track multiple aspects of a patient’s sleep apnea status anytime and anyplace. The system monitors care pathway progress, diagnosis status and results, CPAP compliance, the number of days and hours on CPAP, and residual sleep apnea. Data are presented in a user-friendly visual format that makes it easy to see progress or deviation toward specific treatment goals and changes in metrics over time.
For more information: www.itamar-medical.com