There are four
criteria that should be used to assess any sleep medicine provider’s services.
The first criteria
relates to the issue of accreditation by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine
(AASM).
AASM accreditation is the gold standard by which physicians in the
community and patients evaluate sleep medicine services. The accreditation
process involves detailed reviews of policies, procedures, patient charts, and
such things as inter-scorer reliability with regard to the sleep study data.
Accreditation also ensures that services are provided in facilities providing
optimal patient care.
A second criteria has
to do with the sleep center staffing.
Ideally, sleep disorder centers
should be staffed with a multidisciplinary, multi-specialty team of sleep disorder specialists. This would include board-certified sleep specialists in
neurology, pulmonary medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, and otolaryngology. It
is essential that the center staff include behavioral sleep medicine
specialists who offer expertise in the treatment of insomnia, shift work sleep
disorders, and other sleep-related problems requiring behavioral or cognitive behavioral
interventions.
A third criterion
that should be assessed is the commitment of the practitioners to the field of
sleep medicine.
Ideally, the core staff of the sleep center would have a
practice limited to sleep disorders medicine. Sleep medicine should not
represent a part-time effort or something that is done “on the side”.
A fourth criterion
relates to support services provided to patients within the sleep disorder center.
There should be full-time registered sleep technicians available at all times
to patients, particularly those adjusting to sleep with nasal CPAP. These
registered sleep technicians work closely under the supervision of the sleep
specialists.