The Oregon Clinic is opening a new sleep center in Happy Valley to reduce wait time for patients in the region waiting for crucial sleep studies. Americans are facing increasing sleep disorders, resulting in higher demand for sleep labs and sleep specialist physicians. Sleep disorders can be potentially serious, and can increase the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, diabetes, depression and more. Nearby sleep labs, including The Oregon Clinic’s Gateway location, have reached capacity and often have long waits.
“When a patient has a potential sleep disorder, we want to see them get into a lab for testing fairly quickly so that we can continue to work on diagnosis and treatment with the patient,” explained Dr. Andrea Matsumura, a Sleep Medicine physician at The Oregon Clinic. “This new sleep center not only adds a convenient location for our patients in Clackamas county, but also reduces wait time for all of our sleep patients throughout the region.”
The Oregon Clinic Sleep Center – Happy Valley officially opens November 1. The state-of-the-art sleep center features 6 comfortable rooms outfitted like a hotel room. Each room has a private bath, comfortable Sleep Number queen bed, flat screen TV, and a variety of lighting options. Sleep technologists are awake at the lab all night, monitoring patients’ breathing, movement, snoring, brain wave activity, eye movement and more with a variety of electrodes and sensors. The Oregon Clinic’s new Happy Valley sleep lab can serve 36 in-lab patients each week, in addition to monitoring 12-18 home study patients per week.
Sleep studies are ordered to diagnose sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, periodic limb movements, REM Behavior Disorder, and more. Patients are referred for sleep studies after meeting with their primary care provider or a sleep specialist physician. Anyone concerned about a potential sleep disorder should contact their medical provider to see if a sleep test is applicable.
The Oregon Clinic expects to hire eight to nine new employees for this new location.