Santa Maria Hospital is part of a European project to diagnose and treat sleep apnea

The Pulmonology Service at ULS Santa Maria is part of the European project (INNOBICS-SAHS) for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with sleep apnea.

The project also includes the University Hospital in Girona, Catalonia, with funding from EIT Health and the European Union.

One of the project's goals is to “increase early diagnosis and treatment” of sleep apnea “through an innovative health strategy” for primary care.

“This project included the development of an electronic platform for recording clinical data and the creation of a virtual sleep unit, improving the integration between primary health care teams and the hospital sleep unit at Santa Maria Hospital. The project has already made it possible to track about 600 users to three health centers in Lisbon and reduce the number of patients to be referred to ULSSM sleep consultation by 50 to 60%. “The goal is to reach the goal of screening 1,500 users at the end of this year,” says the Santa Maria Pulmonary Service.

Another goal of the project is to “take a timely diagnostic and therapeutic approach” to sleep apnea, within the scope of primary health care, thus contributing to “reducing the neurocognitive changes and associated cardiovascular comorbidities” with untreated sleep apnea.

“This project allows us to reduce referrals to hospital, reflecting an improvement in the diagnostic capacity of primary care. This is an innovative solution that can be expanded to cover the entire country. Sleep apnea syndrome affects 25% of people aged 30 to 70 years, and is associated with psychological changes Nervousness, which is excessive daytime sleepiness and increased risk of road accidents, in addition to increased cardiovascular complications, leads to a decreased quality of life in people. “Patients, their families and, ultimately, deaths, if not diagnosed early,” says the disease service. Lung.