C13650 – Sleep 101 App
In general, there is a significant knowledge gap in sleep disorder recognition among clinicians and health professions trainees. The wide-spread adoption of mobile applications in the medical field can help diminish this gap efficiently and effectively. This technology is a pair of mobile health applications aimed at educating healthcare professionals on how to recognize sleep disorders in their populations, provides a tool for patients to assess their at-risk-score, and recommends next steps and referral sources in the treatment of the potential sleep disorder.
Currently the sleep education application is not accredited for Continuing Medical Education (CME) or equivalent requirements. This is recommended moving forward to provide added benefit and incentive to clinicians wanting to incorporate the application into practice. More evidence will need to be collected on the effectiveness to recognize at risk patients and refer them to a sleep specialist. If the success rate of identifying at risk patients and connecting them to sleep specialists is high, this could provide a stronger relationship between non-sleep clinicians and Sleep specialists.
A licensing business model for the educational framework of the application can also be pursued. In this model a framework of the education and certification process is established, and then various specific fields of medicine can add their unique content to the curriculum as well as an at-risk-assessment tool and referral base. This application pair can serve as an educational and referral improvement tool for various specialties in the future.
