26-year Old Man Dies During Sleep Study

[Otter]

Maybe there's some confusion about the difference between being a medical assistant and needing medical assistance.

On the size of the room, it may be this room is in an older wing and was originally designed for something else. It might be half a double-occupancy hospital room, for instance. I don't really see how that would matter, though, as long as it's well ventilated and you don't have claustrophobia. It'd be hard to do much pacing when you're wired up like switchboard anyway.

[Slinky]

I've had sleep studies at 2 older facilities, one a converted hospital room, one a converted doctor's exam room. The second study room was obviously not very large, but attempts had been successfully made to make it attractive: pictures on the wall, wood night stands the CPAP and humidifier, etc. sat on, attractive bedding, headboards and footboards for the bed, carpeting, etc. I also went for a sleep study conducted at a beautiful older home, at least the first floor, "business" floor was, the sleep rooms were on the second floor and THEY left a LOT to be desired plus there was one small half bath to accomodate all 4 sleep rooms. I cancelled out of that one.

Persons w/congestive heart failure are walking time bombs and we have no idea if the staff and tech(s) were made fully aware of his condition(s). But given the appearance of that study room I feel less sympathetic to Emory.

[Otter]

Again, something written by a bleeding-heart liberal who has no clue what they are doing and never talked to a top-notch sleep lab to find out industry best practices.

Okay, i read the whole article to see the bit about the new legislation. Dunno if it's so much bleeding heart liberal as opportunistic politician, but I agree that it doesn't sound like any research had been done before drafting it, at least as it was presented in the article.

Emory Healthcare would not comment on the bill because of the Harris family's pending lawsuit. But last year, Emory said Harris died of sudden cardiac death and called his care "appropriate" for his medical condition.

I suspect this is the source of the strange language I mentioned above. The hospital claimed appropriate care, not an appropriate death. I get the impression some of the "news" outlets are just regurgitating their competitors' coverage, and the result is a game of CPAP telephone.

[msradar65]

As the parent of two special needs children and being a minority race. I want to know why the mother was not with the son? If my child was handicapped and had difficulties communicating I would have requested to stay in the room with him. As a matter of fact when my youngest had a sleep study done I did sleep with her that night.

I can also see where this large man could be intimidating to the staff as well as sad to say this could be a situation where the mother nor the family were taken seriously due to their appearance and ability to communicate. IE when I worked in a large hospital some of the staff would have attached a not so nice label to the family of a patient like this. While I I feel treating a patient differently due to race, socioeconomic status or appearance is wrong....I think this goes far deeper.

I also feel the referring doctor did this family a disservice if this patient had all these medical conditions and if not properly managed his study should have been done in a hospital setting.

Again there is far more to this story than what is in the press.

[Slinky]

Yer right, MsRadar. I've never read or heard a news article that I personally had knowledge of the situation where the reporter didn't get something wrong or infer something that didn't apply or left out some particularly important information. The first couple of articles on this that I read there was no mention of congestive heart failure, altho cardiomyopathy was mentioned.

[NateS]

Of course Sleep Labs should be regulated, and state laws should be reviewed from time to time to correct omissions or errors in legislation. Unfortunately this often only happens after a tragedy.
Sleep Labs are a business, and any one who believes all businesses will do any more than they are required by law is living in a dream world. Regardless of medical ethics, there will always be some who cut corners wherever they can get away with it, unless regulated by law. That is a business fact of life. In addition, keeping the corner-cutters in line is what allows the more ethical to stay in business. Otherwise, enterprises with high standards could not afford to compete with the corner-cutters.

SLEEP REVIEW - THE JOURNAL FOR SLEEP SPECIALISTS
SEPTEMBER 2011
http://www.sleepreviewmag.com/issues/ar ... -09_03.asp

Legislative Update
by Ted Thurn

Regulations impacting sleep technologist licensure are on the rise.

Last year, a number of states saw significant legislative/regulatory activity affecting the profession of sleep technology, and many of the issues pertained to legislation or regulations establishing licensure for sleep technologists. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has worked closely with a number of state sleep societies to address pressing legislative issues through direct financial aid and professional support from experienced staff in the government relations department. Since 2008, the AASM has invested more than $500,000 to assist state sleep societies with efforts to develop licensure for the sleep technology profession. These legislative/regulatory activities have spanned across the United States.

Whether or not this lab did all they could or should have done remains to be seen. On the surface, it doesn't appear that there were enough safeguards in place for someone with this many serious health problems, does it? We don't even know whether the lab was informed of the young man's medical condition. There are a lot of legitimate questions unanswered.