Podcast Show Notes

During our call today we interview Steven Garrish, SVP of Safety and Regulatory Compliance for SleepSafe.  Today we answer the question for why you should have a fatigue management program within your employee benefit program. Why have a fatigue management program.  Here are a few reasons:

• You have 15-25% of your workforce that already has sleep apnea with a majority undiagnosed. They’re spending anywhere between $400 – $6,000 for a sleep test and equipment when diagnosed. Putting in a fatigue management program could save you thousands of dollars per test.
• People who get the right amount of sleep are more productive and their bodies heal. Reductions in needed medications and symptoms associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity are common when individuals are able to sleep unobstructed.
• Risk management improves. JB Hunt did a study of their sleep program and found that they had a 53% reduction in accidents, 55% reduction in hard braking, and 56% reduction in medical costs as a result of their fatigue management program.

What is sleep apnea and why is it important for companies to have a fatigue management program?

Obstructive Sleep Apnea – what is it? Injection of adrenaline when your body thinks it’s oxygen deprived.  Many times it’s undiagnosed.

Why is sleep so important? Deep restorative sleep is so important for your body healing and

What do you see with undiagnosed sleep apnea?  It takes a toll on an individual professionally and home life.  Mood Changes, short tempers and physical abnormalities.  As it pertains to your workforce, attentiveness and intention changes.  For trucking, it means you become reactive and be as creative and resilient when it comes to problem solving.  Lack of sleep can be correlated to a similar brain functions as someone under the influence of alcohol.

How the SleepSafe programs works:  4 step process that is overseen by a board certified sleep doctor.

Mandated Physical based off occupation or medical physical. Based off symptoms doctor may recommend a sleep test.

How the testing works with Sleep Safe vs. a traditional network model.

CPAP vs. APAP and why it’s important to consider the long term implications for testing, retesting, and machine adjustments.  This distinction will save you thousands of dollars per year per patient.

How Sleep Safe supports the individual when it comes to using the machine – member support and how to use it correctly.

Reporting and evaluation – why monitoring is important for compliance and for troubleshooting.

Industries that can be served by having a fatigue management program

Plus resources a company can use to establish a fatigue management program.

How sleep safe can help a risk management program and healthier outcomes.

Studies that show the impact on how a fatigue management program can produce savings in healthcare and workers comp claims.

North American Fatigue Management Program – Look online and look this up to learn how fatigue management can work for you.

If you’d like an analysis to show the cost for what you’re doing now vs. using a fatigue management service. Call Steven at: 479-287-1654.

If you would like to learn more about how SleepSafe or how other solutions fit into your corporate benefits program or a review of what else could help your plan improve benefits and save money please reach out to me on LinkedIn(Michael Andrade) connect with me on my website, https://solvinghealthcare.net/contact/ or call me on my cell (832)236-8966.