Sleeping Soundly

I had a follow up doctor's visit today to talk about my sleeping habits. Apparently I snore too loud for my wife's taste, and that turns out to be a good thing!

I brought the issue up to my doctor, and he recommended a sleep study. It turns out that snoring is a precursor to sleep apnea -- a condition where you temporarily stop breathing during the night. For the interested, the operational definition of sleep apnea is a span of 10 continuous seconds or more of non-breathing.

The entire process started a few weeks ago. I was contacted by an administrator that promptly sent me a thick packet of paperwork to fill out before the actual study. They asked me a whole host of questions about my sleeping patterns like; how many times I wake up during the night, how long it takes me to fall asleep, and if I take naps during the day.

The next step is going to a sleep study location, where they wire you up with sensors from head to toe and hook you up to a computer. You then sleep while they record all your information. Of course prior to hooking you up however, you need to fill out some paperwork. Only a couple of pages this time where I have to answer some questions about my sleeping patterns like; how many times I wake up during the night, how long it takes me to fall asleep, and if I take naps during the day.

After the first study, you're invited back to the sleep study location for a follow up study. This time, in addition to being wired up like a science experiment, you are also connected to an oxygen mask. You see, the popularly accepted control for sleep apnea, is forcing oxygen down your windpipe. To do this, you need to dress up like a starship trooper every night, dawning an oxygen mask that's connected to an oxygen supply by a huge hose. It's not very attractive, but makes for a pretty quiet sleep night, so it's definitely worth it. Of course, before you dawn the oxygen mask you need to fill out some more paperwork. They wanted to collect some data about my sleeping patterns like; how many times I wake up during the night, how long it takes me to fall asleep, and if I take naps during the day.

At the doctor's visit today, I was informed that I have a severe case of sleep apnea. On average, in a one hour period of time, I stop breathing 57 times! That's right, about once every minute, I stop breathing for 10 seconds or more. It gets worse. When I'm in dream sleep, I stop breathing 71 times per hour. Just to illustrate the severity, they start getting concerned when you stop breathing more than 10 times per hour.

Of course, before he shared the results with me he had to ask me a few questions about my sleeping patterns like; how many times I wake up during the night, how long it takes me to fall asleep, and if I take naps during the day.

Although I'm very happy I did the sleep study, you may have noticed that there are some efficiency problems with their data collection techniques. In this day and age, why on earth do I have to keep repeating this information? Duplication like this represents waste in your process, and usually results in unnecessary bloating in audit costs.

Periodically, analyze your processes and controls for duplication, and take proactive measures for consolidation. A one-time consolidation effort will pay you back perpetually with cost savings.

Comments

[Bernadette]

This multiple-data-collection "problem" in health care is not what it seems. The multiple requests for the same information is actually a control, meant to mitigate the risk of missing information (you are, after all, just self-reporting, so you might leave important information out part of the time, but you're much less likely to leave something out every single time.)

[John Weathington]

If this is a control it's a terrible control, and here's why. It's at the expense of customer satisfaction, and causes customer irritation. If you're trying to control for the risk of missing information, then the preventive control I would employ here would be to know the important information up front, then record and track it properly.

If it's a risk of unstable repeatability, that's another issue, but I wouldn't control it at the expense of the customer in any way.

Thanks!

-John