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The educator position has a proven role in health care. Congestive heart failure, asthma, and diabetes all have clinical educator models for aiding patients with self-management of their chronic diseases.1 However, a sleep educator is fairly new concept.
Formalizing the role of a sleep educator will raise the competency level of health care professionals who educate individuals and families affected by sleep disorders.  This will result in an improvement in the standard of care and quality of education delivered to patients and will reflect the recommendations of the national guidelines and serve to meet the needs of the target population.
Also, formalizing the role will help provide consistent standardized evidence-based education for patients with sleep disorders and could reduce disparity in education of sleep disorders and, hopefully, improve outcomes. Early identification of sleep-disordered breathing can prevent or delay progression of complications and co-morbidities.2
The sleep educator must evaluate what the client needs to know, best methods for teaching, and how to measure and evaluate the patient's comprehension of the material. This role could be filled by a physician, CNA/MA, sleep technologist, nurse practitioner, or perhaps even a member of the public who participates in patient education.
Big opportunity
Several opportunities exist to participate in the continuum of care for patients with chronic sleep disorders. Sleep educators empower the patient by using best practices and proven methods that include goal setting, problem solving, and follow-up care.
The primary opportunity includes utilizing public health arenas such as diabetic, weight management, and pediatric groups to support healthy sleep habits, and promote health education locations that provide literature about sleep disorders and disease prevention.
Secondary prevention involves working with other health care professionals in clinics, hospitals, and other health care settings to provide education to patients and their families about sleep disorders and therapies.
The tertiary opportunity includes one-on-one support to clients to promote treatment adherence, thus reducing the morbidities related to untreated sleep problems, and helping the client achieve the best possible quality of life.
Clinical practice guidelines for the position of sleep educator should include defining diagnostic criteria for the disorders that will benefit from this role. The guidelines must include therapeutic options related to those disorders, lifestyle changes that may be necessary to prevent exacerbation, societal/family impact upon the patient and their disorder, collaboration with other health care providers to manage co-morbidities, and the availability of resources such as literature, videos, and self-help groups.
There are other considerations concerning the sleep educator. To evaluate the success of a proactive program, desired patient outcomes will need to be determined and measured. Plus, financial reimbursement must be part of the equation. Few sleep programs can continue to offer free patient education and support with the cost of personnel salaries in the current economy.
Another consideration is the formal education and/or certification of sleep educators. Curriculum development will need to be standardized with teaching materials and content, which hopefully could lead to certification of sleep educators similar to the Asthma Educator Certification (AE-C).
The role of educator in sleep disorders could be the key to improvement in patient identification, early treatment, adherence to therapy, and decline of co-morbidities associated with untreated sleep disorders.
References
1. RAND. Improving chronic illness care evaluation (ICICE). Available from: URL: www.rand.org/health/projects/icice.
2. Ronald J, Delaive K, Roos L, Manfreda J, Bahammam A, Kryger MH. Health care utilization in the 10 years prior to diagnosis in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome patients. Sleep. 1999;22(2):225-9.
Bonnie Robertson is the president of Robertson Sleep Medicine Consulting LLC in Indianapolis.
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