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and reaction time, contributing to absenteeism, presenteeism, and workplace injuries,” she notes.
At the population level, she sees underdiagnosis as a preventable burden.“ On a broad scale, widespread underdiagnosis leads to avoidable illness, disability, extra healthcare spending, and lost economic potential,” the Professor notes. She connects this to demographic trends.“ If we don’ t make progress with diagnosis and early intervention, factors like population aging and increasing obesity mean the burden will keep growing,” she adds.
Scaling diagnosis safely
She sees evidence-based home testing to solve capacity issues without removing specialists from the process.“ Advances in evidence-based, at-home diagnostic solutions offer a real answer to the scale of underdiagnosis in sleep apnea,” the Professor observes.
She highlights that quality benchmarks still matter.“ Only a limited number of clinically validated technologies have shown they match the accuracy of cardiorespiratory polygraphy, which remains the clinical gold standard for diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea at home.
“ Some of these technologies go straight to patients without needing inperson supervision, thanks to their userfriendliness and built-in quality controls. In contrast, traditional polygraphy often needs special setup, patient instructions, and expert interpretation,” the Professor adds. She explains the impact on scalability.“ These practical hurdles make it tough to scale up polygraphy, even though it’ s accurate,” she notes.
Looking at system design, she focuses on where diagnosis begins.“ The main advantage of these clinically validated athome diagnostic technologies is that they separate diagnosis from highly specialized,
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