Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with various negative health consequences including increased risk of heart disease, hypertension and daytime sleepiness causing road accidents. The economic burden of OSA is rising as almost 1 billion people worldwide are estimated to have OSA. The current diagnostic metric, however, relates poorly to these symptoms and comorbidities. It merely measures the frequency of breathing cessations without assessing OSA severity in any other physiologically relevant way. Furthermore, the clinical methods for analyzing PSG signals are outdated, expensive and laborious. Due to this, the majority of OSA patients remain without diagnosis or have an inaccurate diagnosis leading to sub-optimal treatment. Thus, it is evident that more personalized diagnostics are required including predictive and preventive health care and patient participation. The SLEEP REVOLUTION aims to develop machine learning techniques to better estimate OSA severity and treatment needs to improve health outcomes and quality of life. These techniques are implemented to high-end wearables developed in this project to alleviate the costs and increase the availability of PSGs. Finally, we aim to design a digital platform that functions as a bridge between researchers, patients and healthcare professionals. We will achieve these ambitious goals throughout extensive collaboration between sleep specialists, computer scientists and industry partners. The collaboration network consists of over 30 sleep centers working together to provide the needed retrospective data (over 10.000 sleep studies). The multi-center prospective trials involve experts and end-users to assess and validate the new SLEEP REVOLUTION diagnostic algorithms, wearables and platforms. With the commitment of the European Sleep Research Society and Assembly of National Sleep Societies (over 8000 members), we have the unique possibility to create new standardized guidelines for sleep medicine in the EU.

Nox Medical will develop and bring to market disruptive technology in sleep diagnostics to address an epidemic which costs Europe more than € 300 billion annually. Nox Medical is a leading company in the field of sleep diagnostics equipment. Based on our experience and market positioning we plan to revolutionize sleep diagnostics by improving the diagnostic power of our products and making them accessible to a much larger market. Current sleep diagnosis methods and criteria are based on findings which were made before computers were common place in the hospital environment. Since then, a range of biomarkers and diagnostics protocols have been discovered, validated, and published in scientific journals. These biomarkers and diagnostics protocols have not been integrated into routine diagnosis. This is partly due to technological challenges and partly due to the conservative nature of medicine. By adopting these biomarkers and diagnostics protocols into state of the art diagnostics products, Nox Medical is bridging the gap between research and clinical application. The resulting products will allow more sleep studies being performed in the home environment, instead of being performed inside a hospital. This will allow better patient stratification, reduction of cost, and make sleep diagnosis available to a much larger market. The results of the project open up a possibility of revolutionising the business model behind sleep diagnostics by offering sleep diagnostics as a service, similar to a model commonly used in software marketing today.

Nox Medical has developed sleep diagnosis solutions since 2006. The company’s products are sold globally in all sleep diagnosis markets. New markets open up with simplifying medical systems using technological developments and telemedicine. Building on this, Nox Medical will develop an accessible screening solution to diagnose sleep-disorder-breathing (SDB). The prevalence of SDB is over 35% in people over 40 years old. Sleep clinics and sleep specialists cannot answer the demand for diagnosis. Nox Medical wants to bring tools to diagnose SDB to new markets, doctors not specialized in sleep medicine, allowing more patients access to diagnosis and giving doctors tools that add to and compliment their diagnosis methods. Nox Medical will validate a biomarker for SDB screening. The biomarker is paradox movements in patients thorax and abdomen during breathing, derived from calibrated RIP belt measurements. The RIP belts monitor thorax and abdomen movements, giving information about breathing and ECG. This biomarker allows Nox Medical to screen for various forms of SDB. The solution will be developed with the diagnosis of SDB and monitoring of SDB treatment in mind and later expanded to address other pulmonary conditions. The solution will be offered in a pay-per-use business model allowing doctors to pay for each measurement conducted. This allows new and occasional users full access to the solution without large capital investments. The business model removes the barrier of a big capital investment on the users’ part. There is demand for a accessible screening solution. Nox Medical sees the demand through its global distributors and medical professionals, such as pediatricians and cardiologists. Nox Medical will meet the demand using a new discovery of the company to diagnose SDB and create an inexpensive, accurate, and simple to use screening- and follow up solution for doctors. The solution uses wireless smart sensors, smart phones, and a pay-per-use business model