Review by Anna Rodriguez, RPSGT
Clinical Coordinator
Sleep Disorders Center of Virginia
Richmond, VA
SLEEPMATE SENSORS VALUED FEATURES
We do not use a lot of the movement sensors, however we do use an enormous amount of their snore sensors and effort belts. The snore sensors and effort belts are self-explanatory to use and understand their purpose. We use a lot of their pulse oximeters and cost-effective sense aid sensors that provide us with very clear signals. In summary, the valued features in this product that are extremely important to us, are its signal quality, sensor durability, costs efficiency, and ease of use. It was not necessary to train in using their products.
AFTER-SALES SUPPORT AND COMPATIBILITY ISSUES
SleepMate’s after-sales support is excellent. If I needed to order a product, I would have the utmost confidence that it would be here the very next day. Their customer service follows up routinely to make certain that we received everything we needed. There really is not much improvement that needs to be implemented there. However, some of the new sleep software systems are not compatible with the sense aid sensors that we are currently using. We recently upgraded two of our labs and unfortunately we were unable to use some sensors in those two labs because the new systems were not compatible with the sense aids
TIME-SAVING TRAINING PROGRAMS
We are in the process of hiring close to a dozen technicians and need training for them. It is going to be next to impossible to do the training in-house because there are so many trainees. Some of the trainees are people with little sleep experience. Therefore instead of doing our training in-house, we send the trainees to new education institutions that teach them the fundamentals of polysomnography. Normally students would be required to invest 80 hours in training, while SleepMate’s classes on the fundamentals of polysomnography can be completed within 40 hours. We are also able to use their educational CD’s in our training program because it covers everything from scoring to CPAP titrations to the fundamentals of sleep.
EDUCATIONAL COURSES
I have personally attended their classes and the degree of their education courses was top-notch. In my opinion, they are difficult to beat! I enrolled in the registry review class and everything was excellent in regards to the facility, the outline of the course and the depth of material covered. I recommend SleepMate educational courses to everyone who have little sleep background because the courses are designed to “break in” students with no prior sleep experience by adopting the go-easy-on-heavy-material approach. The end results prove to be extremely beneficial and such impressive educational courses have been needed for a long time.