Respironics Awarded for Customer Service
Respironics Inc, Murrysville, Pa, is the recipient of this year’s Frost & Sullivan 2005 Customer-Ranked Leader in Sleep Diagnostic Equipment Quality and Customer Service Award. The award recognizes Respironics as the leading sleep diagnostic equipment manufacturer in both product quality and customer service for its production and support of the Alice® family of polysomnographic sleep systems. “The team involved in the creation, development, and continued support of Alice has worked hard to make this product line stand out in the marketplace for its quality and reliability. For this effort to be recognized by our customers is truly an honor,” said Ron Fligge, product manager, Sleep Diagnostics, and Homecare Division. “We place a great deal of emphasis on providing high quality customer service and product support both in the field and over the phone, working directly with our sleep diagnostic customers to meet their specific needs.”

Joseph Anderson, RPSGT, RPFT, CRT-NPS

Sleepmate Appoints New VP of Sales and Marketing
Sleepmate Technologies, Midlothian, Va, has appointed Joseph Anderson, RPSGT, RPFT, CRT-NPS, as vice president of sales and marketing. He has been in the position of director of sales and marketing since January 2004 and product manager since 2001. Anderson brings more than 20 years of clinical practice as well as 10 years of marketing and product management experience to his expanded role as marketing and product manager. Since 2001, he has been instrumental in such Sleepmate product launches as the Web-based Sleepmate Professional Training Series, the new Sleepmate Web site, pulse oximetry sensors, and Sleepmate’s new product line of second-generation sensors, released this year.

ResMed Expands San Diego Office
ResMed, Poway, Calif, recently purchased the last remaining 9.78-acre parcel of land in San Diego Spectrum in Kearny Mesa for $21,000,000, with plans to build a new US headquarters facility. In the transaction, ResMed acquired lots 22, 23, and 24 of the master-planned, 244-acre San Diego Spectrum business and residential community. “Our purchase of the Spectrum site is a reflection of our confidence in ResMed’s future growth and of our commitment to the San Diego community,” said Keith Serzen, ResMed’s COO of the Americas. “When we relocated to Poway almost 5 years ago, we projected that the facility would provide adequate space for 7 to 10 years. Our growth has far outpaced those projections. Burnham Real Estate helped us identify a site in San Diego that would provide us with the facility we need to take the company through our next phase of growth.”

Randy Carruthers

BRAEBON Appoints Director
BRAEBON Medical Corp, Ogdensburg, NY, recently appointed Randy Carruthers as the director of PSG Accessory Sales for BRAEBON’s new PSG Accessory division. “Randy brings extensive industry experience to BRAEBON Medical Corporation,” said company president Richard Bonato. Carruthers’ primary responsibility will be to develop marketing and sales growth around the Ultima Sleep Sensor product line, the new BRAEBON Sleep Capnograph, the evolving line of etco2 and sleep cannulas, and future BRAEBON accessory products. “Mr Carruthers is an excellent fit with the BRAEBON customer satisfaction philosophy and will quickly become an important player at BRAEBON,” said Michael Clark, BRAEBON’s director of marketing and sales for sleep diagnostics. “He is widely known in the sleep field and has over 10 years of experience dealing with sleep accessories.” In the past, Carruthers directed the North American sensor sales at MedCare and was a salesperson at Pro-Tech. “BRAEBON has a very clear picture of what is required in today’s sleep business environment. Their comprehensive product lineup of premium sleep sensors, and diagnostic and data management products, has something for everyone at a reasonable price,” Carruthers said. “I look forward to becoming an integral part of the BRAEBON team and reestablishing contact with people I have known in the industry for many years.”

Fisher & Paykel Introduces SleepStyle 600 Series
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Laguna Hills, Calif, recently hosted a session entitled “Optimal Humidification for Positive Airway Pressure Therapy” at the APSS annual meeting. The “Industry Supported Event” sanctioned by the APSS included a discussion of the SleepStyle™ 600 Series CPAP with ThermoSmart™ Technology—a new product that Fisher & Paykel launched at the conference. The session also included a clinical discussion of the need for humidification in CPAP therapy and the limitations of conventional humidifiers.

Neurotronics Develops New File System
When a sleep laboratory needs to collect data from several sites with different recording equipment, European Data Format (EDF) is used as a standard. The problem often comes up that EDF is no longer sufficient to use for the collection of data from disparate systems. Neurotronics Inc, Gainesville, Fla, has developed a new XML-based open file system that is backwards compatible with EDF and includes the capacity to handle the many scoring and data parameters in use today. This is an open format initiative, and while Neurotronics is currently managing it, the company does not intend to control it. The philosophy behind the project is to provide an open and extensible file format that can be used to share data seamlessly between systems without licensing fees. The company believes this would benefit manufacturers and sleep professionals. “Sleep professionals today want to keep track of much more information than EDF is designed to hold,” says James Schubert, CTO, Neurotronics Inc. “At the same time, they expect to be able to use the records they have already accumulated in EDF. There is a need for a better way to exchange sleep data. To this end, an open standard for digital storage of time-series physiological signals and annotations has been developed based on XML.” Files created with this format can be used to populate databases and create collections of patient records for research and/or centralized archiving. Since the standard is extensible, new information types can be added as the sleep field advances and new needs develop. Interested parties can find out more by visiting www.openxdf.org.
Bio-logic Signs Agreement
Bio-logic Systems Corp, Mundelein, Ill, has signed a 3-year agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners, LP, the group purchasing division of Premier Inc, San Diego, one of the largest health care alliances in the United States. Under the agreement, Bio-logic will offer sleep diagnostics equipment, services, and accessories to Premier’s affiliated hospital and health care systems. “For the period through 2011, Frost & Sullivan projects double-digit growth in the sleep service provider market, as well as a 13% increase in the number of sleep studies performed annually,” said Roderick G. Johnson, president and chief operating officer of Bio-logic. “This agreement, with one of the nation’s leading health care alliances, further confirms the leadership position that Bio-logic products have achieved in the sleep diagnostics arena. With the strong health care interest in sleep apnea monitoring, we are very pleased to have been chosen by Premier as one of three suppliers on this important contract.”

Respironics Releases a Ventilatory Support System
Respironics Inc, Murrysville, Pa, announces the release of its BiPAP® S/T Ventilatory Support System, the newest addition to its home noninvasive ventilator fleet. The unit offers a straightforward user interface and an integrated heated humidifier for easier setup and management. The unit also is the first noninvasive device to combine Respironics’ BiPAP technology with SmartCard® for use with Encore® Pro and has features such as Digital Auto-Trak™ Sensitivity™, adjustable RiseTime, and integrated alarms. “The BiPAP S/T combines a simple design with sophisticated features that benefit both patients and clinicians,” said Cheryl Needham, product manager, Home Ventilation, and Homecare Division. “Our Digital Auto-Trak feature helps to improve a patient’s comfort while use with our SmartCard and Encore Pro helps clinicians gather and manage more accurate data.”

ResMed Offers Educational Programs
ResMed Corp, Poway, Calif, is increasing its ongoing efforts to create awareness and recognition of the high prevalence of SDB and its negative impact on patients suffering from diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and hypertension. As part of this initiative, ResMed is helping sleep laboratories and home medical equipment providers develop relationships with primary care physicians and heart failure specialists. “Approximately 20 million Americans have SDB, yet as many as 80% remain undiagnosed and untreated in practice. Treating their SDB can have a tremendous positive impact on their treatment outcomes,” said Michael Farrell, VP of Marketing. As part of ResMed’s industry awareness campaign, the company will be exhibiting at booth #518 at the American Academy of Family Physicians Annual Meeting in San Francisco (September 29 through October 1, 2005); they will also be exhibiting at the Heart Failure Society of America Annual Meeting in Boca Raton, Fla (September 18 through September 20, 2005).

WestCare Health System Opens Sleep Center
WestCare Health System, Sylva, NC, has opened a new two-bed sleep center, which will be serving western North Carolina by offering sleep studies including multiple sleep latency tests. The center is located on the campus of Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva. “We are in the western part of North Carolina, and we see a big need to increase the sleep services we currently offer,” says Scott Cochran, director of cardiopulmonary, WestCare Health System. “By opening this sleep center, we will be able to offer patients two choices of location, depending on which area they are coming from.” WestCare Health System also includes Swain County Hospital, which has a two-bed sleep center.