SBIR/STTR Award attributes
Project Summary/Abstract Minnesota HealthSolutions Corporation in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic proposes to develop a data driven system for persons with obesity sleep apnea that utilizes remote monitoring together with health coaching to create behavior change aimed at improving health and quality of life. Obstructive sleep apnea prevalence has been estimated at 7% for adult males and 5% for adult females. It is estimated that more than half of the prevalence of OSA is due to excess body weight. Obstructive sleep apnea has been found in multiple studies to be independently associated with hypertension, stroke, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and reduced quality of life. However, separating obstructive sleep apnea related contribution to morbidity from that of obesity and other comorbidities can be difficult. There are multiple relationships between a wide range of comorbidities and obstructive sleep apnea. It is therefore important to address OSA, obesity and behavior together. Health coaching has demonstrated effectiveness in addressing many chronic conditions. The use of remote monitoring devices to collect health data offers an additional opportunity to enhance health coaching as supported by preliminary research. Critically, the health data must be properly collected, analyzed, and communication to be both valid and useful. Minnesota HealthSolutions and the Mayo Clinic have previously collaborated to develop a successful home-monitoring system for another chronic disease and have demonstrated their ability to overcome the many challenges of developing and deploying this type of system.
