Itamar Medical recently launched its cloud-based sleep apnea patient care pathway management tool called SleePath. The system is specifically designed for the cardiology market to help cardiologists monitor patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) sleep apnea management status and the patient’s compliance with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines.

Managing sleep apnea effectively is important for improving outcomes for AF patients. AF is a type of irregular heartbeat that affects 6 million people in the U.S. Sleep apnea happens in about 50% of AF patients and is higher in patients who are scheduled for catheter ablation.

“Effective management of sleep apnea is now believed to be critical for controlling atrial fibrillation post ablation. The ability for us, the electrophysiologists, to assess patients’ sleep apnea status and their adherence to CPAP on demand and correlating it to the AF manifestations is a big help,” Elad Anter at Beth Israel Deconess in Boston said in a press release. “The information that SleePath provides is important for achieving optimal outcomes following catheter ablation. Knowing that a patient isn’t using their CPAP as prescribed is an important first step in opening a dialog with the sleep experts that can identify obstacles and help improve adherence.”

SleePath uses data from the Philips Respironics CPAP machine to create a cardio sleep dashboard that allows physicians to track different aspects of a patient’s sleep apnea status at any time and from anywhere. The system can monitor care pathway progress, diagnosis status and results, CPAP compliance, the number of days and hours on CPAP and residual sleep apnea. Data from SleePath is then presented using a user-friendly visual format that provides easy access to progress or deviation toward different treatment goals and changes in metrics over time.

“Itamar Medical is committed to innovating technologies that allow effective sleep apnea management to be readily integrated into paradigms for protecting and improving cardiovascular health,” said Gilad Glick, CEO of Itamar Medical. “Devices using our PAT technology and our Total Sleep Solutions service are rapidly becoming important tools for improving the care of patients living with or at risk for a variety of cardiovascular disorders. SleePath provides cardiologists and electrophysiologists with insights into CPAP adherence that enable them to work their patients to achieve optimal outcomes. Now physicians don’t need to lose sleep over their patients’ sleep apnea.”