Israel Calling...........

I have been talking to SPO Medical about software bugs in my 7500 pulse oximeter. Matter of fact, I have been taking the three output reports, scanning them into a .pdf file and sending to SPO for review.

The other day I received an email from SPO in Israel asking if I would participate in a conference call with the SPO marketing manager and a member of their engineering staff. The telecon lasted about 40 minutes.

The SPO folks informed me that they and their software supplier in Europe are working diligently to correct the pulse flatlining on the Pulse Oximeter Report, incorrect dates on reports, the time discrepancy (averages around 50 minutes) and some other data integrity problems that I and others have discovered.

I am glad I have the unit because it is confirming the efficicacy of my therapy, but SPO does need to resolve their software problems and give their customers updated software.

Excellent! That would have been a fun conference call to participate in. I would like for them to know it diminishes the value of their product to require that a "report" be uploaded to the wrist device before it becomes useful for other than spot checks. I (and others here) have wasted several nights of perfectly good data because the SPO was not pre-loaded. There's no good reason for that. And if a mistake is made that puts the process of yet another day. VERY annoying.

-Ric

jeepdoctor wrote:The other day I received an email from SPO in Israel asking if I would participate in a conference call with the SPO marketing manager and a member of their engineering staff. The telecon lasted about 40 minutes.

Excellent! An example of a company seeking consumer feedback.

It makes for an interesting comparison with the major manufacturers of xPAP machines where, from reports posted here, the design teams are completely insulated from consumers of their products.

I have to wonder - which companies are better positioned for long-term survival?

Regards,
Bill

Ric, I am not going to defend SPO, but I can see the value of pre-identifying the patient to the instrument before the study is done.

If I were a doc with two or three of these machines to loan out to suspected apniacs, it would take the guess work out of whose data is on which device. This would be if the office help didn't do a good job of keeping the instruments identified by patients when they were turned in the next morning for data download and analysis.

Good job, jeepdoctor! Please keep us apprised of any new developments as I have one of these units also.

Paul

jeepdoctor wrote:Ric, I am not going to defend SPO, but I can see the value of pre-identifying the patient to the instrument before the study is done. If I were a doc with two or three of these machines to loan out to suspected apniacs, it would take the guess work out of whose data is on which device. This would be if the office help didn't do a good job of keeping the instruments identified by patients when they were turned in the next morning for data download and analysis.

Given your specific example, yes I agree that pre-identifying the patient is of value. In a clinic setting that is a good thing, and I don't mean to diminish that.

However, for a single-user/owner those features are of no value, and are in fact annoying. For the aviator, sports enthusiast, and even the one-owner CPAP user (not clinician), having those lock-down features means one cannot do a spontaneous recording of O2 saturation without first putzing with the software (and hope you get it right).

Where two or more parties are involved, yes the lock-down is useful, in fact IMPORTANT. I suppose that is a marketing decision, it is probably targeted to the clinical environment. I have stated earlier that these devices are a GREAT candidate for screening, something that is not otherwise widely available or inexpensive.

That said, I still wish there were a "spontaneous mode" that would allow ad hoc recording and subsequent data dump, and analysis. I wouldn't even care if it required a software menu to set the machine to "clinic vs. freeform" operating mode. Or a "preview" menu option that would show what is on the device memory, and display/print it without all the analytic bells and whistles. That could salvage a lot of otherwise lost or unavailable data. Even a second-party clinician might find it useful to peek at what is on the wrist device to identify what is on it, and to VERIFY the settings, (rather than send the patient home with the wrong instrument or incorrectly initialized instrument). That would be not unlike the way the various sports heart-rate monitors operate. Those are typically targeted to the single-user, not for clinical screening of one-device/many-patients model. I also think it would be a good marketing decision. And I will further guess that the device was designed from the ground up with the clinician in mind, not the single user. If in fact a market for that exists, SPO will either adapt or be exposed to some competition for "the OTHER 90% of the market". Maybe a "sports model" is in the works (?)

As for the SPO 7500, I am still VERY impressed with how nicely it operates, (other than the aforementioned annoyances and bugs with the software). I have had no problems with the switches that other have reported, I have had some problems with light leaks, which I have solved. And I have a long list of things which I would engineer differently (and better). I give them credit for making a good start, I'm still glad I got one, it has been VERY informative. And I thank jeepdoctor for announcing it here on the forum, (and the low price deal!)

-Ric

A friend with an AHI of 25 used the PO the other night, experiencing 72 desaturations. The De-saturation Report listed the first 32 desats only.

I have forwarded the report to Eric at SPO along with a request on how to print a report on the remaining 40 desats.