For further information, contact:
Jayson R. White, Public Relations Manager
Telephone: (518) 926-1846
Fax: (518) 926-7012
Email: GFHInternet@glensfallshosp.org
Adirondack Sleep Disorders Lab
moves to 92 Broad Street
Community open house set for Dec. 7
GLENS FALLS – Patient demand is so brisk for the Adirondack Sleep Disorders
Lab’s services that it’s enough to, well, lose sleep over it.
In just six short years,
the Adirondack Sleep Disorders Lab has outgrown
its 2 Broad Street Plaza facility in Glens Falls, necessitating a move one block
east at 92 Broad Street. To celebrate the move, the Sleep Lab will host a
community open house on Thursday, Dec. 7 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The open house
includes tours, food/refreshments and giveaways.
Previously, the Sleep Lab shared space on the Broad Street Plaza’s second floor
with Glens Falls Hospital’s Nutrition Center. At the new two-story location,
Sleep Lab patients have their own dedicated space. After their arrival, patients
have a choice of waiting in their assigned bedroom or in a private patient
lounge prior to the start of the sleep study. Afterward, patients can eat meals
in privacy whereas they previously ate meals in the conference room shared by
the entire building.
The 92 Broad Street location now has six sleep study rooms, all with attached
bathrooms, while the previous location only had four with two attached bathrooms
and two located across the hall. Each room has a full-size bed and a
remote-controlled camera for monitoring each patient’s sleep patterns. Channeled
walls minimize outside noises and distractions. The move gives staff one more
room for preparing patients for sleep studies plus a larger control room to
monitor them. At nearly 500 square feet larger, the expanded facility also
affords staff more storage space as well as a dedicated conference room.
Having the dedicated space and increased staffing offers the added convenience
of having patients stop by for a tour of the Sleep Lab should any of the
ordering physicians refer them for a sleep study, thus reducing some patient
anxiety.
As Kerry Sumner, respiratory care services director, explained, the Sleep Lab
has come a long way in a few short years – conducting just three sleep studies a
week while using a converted ultrasound room at night before moving to the Broad
Street Campus in May 2000. There, the department expanded to 24 weekly studies,
including daytime nap studies. Still, demand has outpaced the department’s rapid
growth.
“We’ve done more and more volume and gotten further and further behind,” said
Sumner, noting that more than 150 patients are on the waiting list for sleep
studies.
Further fueling the backlog, added Sumner, is the national demand for
respiratory therapists specializing in sleep medicine. The Sleep Lab plans to
add two more full-time respiratory therapists with the move.
The stress of finding qualified candidates can be enough for any dedicated sleep
lab program director to find himself or herself on the other side of the pillow
… looking for a good night’s sleep.
For more information about the Sleep Lab’s Dec. 7 open house, call
(518) 926-2090.
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