Most industries go through a period where new ideas change the way people approach them. For William Noah, the sleep industry needed a wake-up call.
Noah, a sleep and pulmonary physician with more than 30 years of experience, is the founder, chairman and chief science officer of the respiratory company SleepRes, Inc. In 2021, Noah realized the science behind continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines was, as he puts it, “all wrong.” So he decided to find a new approach to helping people with their sleep disorders.
This decision brought on Noah’s invention: the Kairos Positive Airway Pressure (KPAP) algorithm, which is designed to deliver the right pressure at the right time instead of forcing constant pressure throughout the entire breath cycle, as CPAP does.
The technology adapts pressure delivery through the breathing cycle, which Noah said makes it more tolerable
for users than traditional CPAP. The company’s soon-to-launch Kricket PAP device includes the KPAP algorithm but can also be used in traditional CPAP and automatic PAP therapy modes.
Noah said the sleep industry is currently at what he calls “an important inflection point,” with there being an increased focus on patient comfort and physiological alignment alongside efficacy. Noah and his team have spent the last two years working to perfect the machine’s Cloud technology so physicians and respiratory therapists can interact with the data and stay up to date on a patient’s status.
SleepRes is beginning a limited market release in quarter 3/early quarter 4, with broader availability to follow. Kricket was previewed at the Medtrade Conference and Expo in March, where it received a Providers Choice Bronze Award from the New Product Pavilion.
Noah said there are approximately 250,000 new CPAPs dispensed every month in the United States—adding up to 3 million per year. While it will take time for Kricket to reach those numbers, he said the company is working to make sure everyone gets the same experience with their Kricket device.
“The whole question is, can you manufacture high volumes and maintain quality?” Noah said. “So, we’re not going to go super fast because that’s where you mess up."
According to the National Institutes of Health, the average adherence rate for long-term CPAP use ranges between 30% to 60%, with the majority of people citing discomfort as a main reason for discontinuing their treatment.
In addition to revamping therapeutic approaches, Noah said he also thinks there needs to be more thorough obstructive sleep apnea education for providers.
“Providers need more physiology and much more understanding of the engineering behind home testing devices and PAP devices,” he said. “These are tools, and we must be experts with these tools to best apply them to patients. In the U.S. likely 65% to 75% of patients are diagnosed and treated by a non-sleep physician or dentist with no formal training in sleep medicine. And then for patients that do get the right initial treatment, many are not getting proper follow-up. A provider has to be an expert on device event detection and its limitations to provide follow-up CPAP or KPAP care. I applaud those out there who do it well. We need more of them.”
Michelle Love is the associate editor for HomeCare Media.