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Sleep HealthCenters® LLC Enters into Agreements with Brigham and Women's and McLean Hospitals to Expand their Sleep Medicine Services
Posted by CSEN on February 21, 1999 at 09:58:23: Thursday February 18, 8:29 am Eastern Time Company Press Release
SOURCE: Sleep HealthCenters® LLC
Sleep HealthCenters® LLC Enters into Agreements with Brigham and Women's and McLean Hospitals to Expand their Sleep Medicine Services
Strategy is to partner with leading sleep clinics in major markets across U.S. to create nation's largest sleep-specialty group and expand scope of unique offerings to include both diagnostic and therapeutic services - Sleep HealthCenters® LLC ("SHC'') announced today that it has entered into agreements with two hospitals -- Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital and Belmont, Mass.-based McLean Hospital -- to expand their sleep medicine services.
SHC intends to move these sleep clinics from their existing locations in the hospitals into free- standing comprehensive sleep clinics, affiliated with their respective hospitals, early in 1999. "The market for sleep medicine services is growing very rapidly, but it is an extremely fragmented market,'' said David Barone, SHC's Chief Executive Officer. "There is a significant business opportunity in being able to coordinate provision of care for sleep disorders that is designed to meet patient, physician and managed-care expectations for customer service, quality and cost-effectiveness.'' "Our strategy is to partner with certain hospital-based and free-standing sleep clinics from among the more than 2,000 in the U.S.,'' explained Stanley M. Goldstein, SHC's President. "Most provide only diagnostic services -- a $750 million market in 1997 -- but do not capture any portion of revenue for sleep therapeutics -- including medical, surgical and behavioral therapies presently provided by various medical specialists and home healthcare agencies. "Given that an estimated 30 million Americans with chronic sleep disorders are going undiagnosed and untreated, we believe the untapped market for diagnosing and treating sleep disorders exceeds $15 billion. At each clinic with whom SHC collaborates, we therefore will expand the range of services provided -- from primarily diagnostic to include all pertinent therapeutic regimens, delivered by a multi-disciplinary team -- a strategy that will make us unique in the sleep medicine industry,'' said Goldstein. "SHC's 'integrated services' approach, governed by clinical protocols and supported by a state-of-the-art clinical information system, will enable us to offer managed care organizations, referring physicians and patients greater convenience, valuable information and better outcomes for sleep disorders,'' added David P. White, M.D., an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Past President of the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA). Dr. White, through his position as Director of the Sleep Program at Brigham and Women's Hospital, will serve as Medical Director for Sleep HealthCenters®. SHC's ability to develop its "integrated'' operating model is enhanced by its exclusive agreement with Sleep Disorders Centers (SDC) Ltd., an operator of large sleep centers in Israel. SDC is providing SHC with its comprehensive clinical and case management protocols, large clinical database for sleep disorders (more than 40,000 patients), and extensive expertise in operating a network of sleep clinics similar to those planned by SHC. In addition, the two organizations are actively collaborating in the development of new clinical protocols and in the evaluation of new technologies and therapies to be integrated into their respective operations. Sleep HealthCenters® headquartered in Newton, Mass., is a privately held company whose mission is to develop comprehensive, user-friendly and outcome-oriented sleep medicine clinics.
SOURCE: Sleep HealthCenters® LLC
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