Sleep HealthCenters hits big time, creates largest sleep biz in New England
by John Farrell

NEWTON, Mass. - Sleep HealthCenters^® (SHC), a privately held company in business for about a year, entered into exclusive agreements in February with two Harvard affiliated-hospitals to create the largest sleep practice in New England.

The deals were made with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Belmont, Mass. - based McLean Hospital.

SHC plans to soon move the hospitals' sleep clinics from their existing locations into freestanding comprehensive clinics.

The company's CEO, David Barone, said the move comes in response to a number of fundamental problems plaguing the current delivery of sleep services.

"Patients are being presented with a hodgepodge of delivery systems from different providers - DMEs for CPAP, surgeons for surgery, dentists for oral appliances, etc. - and while each can do a good job on its own, the whole delivery of care is totally unintegrated," Barone said.

The result is that too many patients are falling between the cracks and never reaching treatment, according to Barone.

Moreover, he feels that almost everyone who actually does reach treatment is not followed up with on an ongoing basis, in spite of the fact that sleep apnea is a chronic disorder.

"So, what SHC is doing, essentially, is creating a sleep carve-out, where we're setting up outpatient clinics affiliated with some of the leading teaching institutions and medical centers around the country," he said.

The idea is to integrate the entire delivery of sleep services under one roof, where patients can have all of the medical, technical and support services to diagnose, treat and manage all sleep disorders. HME

HME News Volume 5, Number 4 April 1999