Itamar Medical’s WatchPAT® home sleep apnea test (HSAT) devices continue to grow in popularity among prescribers and patients, for many reasons. Patients can appreciate the ease of use and comfort, and prescribers acknowledge the reliability, accuracy, and reporting speed of these state-of-the-art products.
What sets WatchPAT® apart is, of course, the PAT® signal. The Peripheral Arterial Tone (PAT®) signal is a non-invasive measure of the arterial pulsatile volume changes at the fingertip. It is a proprietary technology used to identify respiratory events.
Many medical professionals want to learn more about how the PAT® signal works, and offering best-in-class professional education is a core commitment of Itamar® Medical.
The COVID-19 Outbreak
Every aspect of medicine has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a greater demand for remote technologies of all kinds including telemedicine, continuous remote monitoring, and digital prescriptions. For Itamar® Medical, the pandemic has produced a greater demand for HSATs, especially the WatchPAT® ONE fully disposable test.
But the peer-to-peer classroom training with interactive courses and hands-on training–that was the standard operating procedure Itamar® Medical used for teaching–had to be shelved. Looking for a virtual solution to provide continuous education, PAT® Academy was formed.
PAT® Academy Basic and Advanced Courses
PAT® Academy is Itamar® Medical’s education platform that was designed for clinicians who would like to understand more about PAT® signal and WatchPAT® technology. PAT® Academy
offers different levels of courses in multiple languages and time zones.
The PAT® Academy basic course “Practice and Principles” is designed for physicians seeking to understand the PAT® signal physiology, WatchPAT® scoring algorithm and diagnosis capabilities. Topics covered include:
-Review WatchPAT® technology
-Evaluate hypnogram and sleep-disordered breathing patterns
-Identify salient features in WatchPAT® reports
-Target areas for greater scrutiny in WatchPAT® recordings
-Summarize impact of visual overreading in COMPASS study
The advanced course “Case Analysis” is geared toward physicians who would like to learn how to interpret the WatchPAT® report and recording and understand when and how to verify and edit WacthPAT® recordings by using the manual scoring guidelines. Topics covered include:
-Distinguish Obstructive vs. Cheyne-Stokes/Central Sleep Apnea
-Apply editing guidelines across a spectrum of sleep-disordered breathing
-Revisit a spectrum of obstructive sleep-disordered breathing patterns
-Recognize non-respiratory sleep disturbances
A Valuable Resource for Sleep Professionals
The PAT® Academy is designed to introduce physicians and sleep technologists to the analysis of WatchPAT® HSATs. Practitioners are encouraged to derive key inferences from WatchPAT®’s automated report, and to solidify those inferences with visual analysis of physiologic signals contained in the underlying recordings.
This approach serves to highlight the importance of alterations in autonomic cardiorespiratory control in recognizing sleep-wake state and sleep-disordered breathing episodes. In a series of illustrative case examples, the PAT® Academy builds progressively on fundamental principles to enhance the clinician’s acumen and ability to accurately diagnose a variety of sleep-disordered breathing patterns and non-respiratory sleep disorders. This approach implements state-of-the-art scoring guidelines, which were developed from a rigorous comparison of WatchPAT® and polysomnographic (PSG) recordings.
These courses were designed to take the practitioner from basic to advanced case analyses. Cases are specifically selected to illustrate key concepts required to render secure diagnoses of respiratory and non-respiratory sleep disorders. This approach teaches the practitioner how to leverage the automated analyses of WatchPAT® studies with efficient strategies to recognize, confirm, and edit the scored recordings.
The PAT® Academy welcomes further input and insights from sleep professionals to reinforce and extend the curriculum with additional didactic material and interactive activities.
Signing Up for PAT® Academy Courses
The no-cost courses have high demand and limited openings. Participation is not limited to physicians. Anyone interested in learning to perform a manual scoring review, edit for WatchPAT® sleep studies, or learn more about PAT® signal and its capabilities is welcome to attend. Find out all the platform offers, get answers to questions and sign up for courses now at