Finally we were able to purchase new equipment for the lab that I have been dreaming about! I am expecting installation to begin next week and training the week after.  The prep work on our end -- checking the existing cabling and wiring connections for compatibility with the new system -- has been going on for a couple of weeks ...

It's still early in the year, and things move a bit slower. I find this is the best time for me to look over what worked and did not work over the last year and to plan a course of action moving forward. This year is particularly important as the economy has changed how we do business. As I look at the changes in the ...

Every month we need to have a staff meeting. I personally hate them, but I know they are necessary--and I've discovered that you can create meaningful staff meetings and help meet your CEU requirements at the same time. If you create a yearly schedule of educational topics and have a basic outline of topics that need to be covered, you can get ...

NURSES BURN OUT ON LONG SHIFTS!! Well surprise, surprise, surprise, and to quote one of my favorite malcontent Disney characters, Diego, ''I am not surprised, I am so not surprised, I think I am going to die from not surprise!'' This article under this headline laments the long 12-hour shifts nurses must work and how dissatisfied they become ...

Hodgepodge is my word for the day, and if you follow synchronicity, then it's the pattern for my life lately.  I guess it's a good thing. That post-vacation funk is gone and in its place is the business of the new agenda. All of the new hires have moved to night shift, which has quieted my space considerably but created a head-banging ...

I received a phone call the other day from a patient who wanted a new CPAP machine. His was 10-years-old and knew he needed a new one. I told him to talk to his primary care doctor. The patient called me back and said that his doctor sent him to a pulmonologist who he did not want to see. He asked if my medical director could follow him ...

Whew!! What a week. My lab went through re-accreditation this past week. Thank goodness it's over. While I was confident in our practice habits, I was still a little unnerved at being examined.  I guess that is only natural since so much rides on passing. (We did, of course, and I would say with flying colors.) For the past two years, we ...

In the news this week, a pediatric sleep tech was accused of inappropriate contact with two underage children. The news channels jumped all over his role as a night-time tech who sets up children for studies, even though the alleged contact did not happen at work and he had no criminal record when he was hired five years ago. Whether ...

There is a huge failure rate for CPAP therapy; some would even say it is as high as 50 percent. That number is being used by insurance companies, home sleep testing companies, and people who do not believe in sleep apnea to prove that we are testing too many people and spending too much money. But we're not. The failure rate results from our ...

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope and trust we have all settled in to our post-holiday schedules, some of us with a big sigh of relief.  The extra busy part is over for me for but I am still full of anticipation.  I am excitedly waiting the return of my son, the airman, who will be home at the end of the month.  I can't wait! Boy, ...