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+--- Thread: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? (/Thread-Best-information-to-print-out-for-your-doctor-s-visit)
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Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - SnuffySleeper - 02-18-2014
Hoping some people could give me some tips as to what is the best SleepyHead/Resscan data to print out for a sleep doctor's follow up visit. I have a doctors appointment follow up in a couple days and wanted to address my concerns with the amount of CA events I have but overall Cpap has been a very positive improvement.
I prefer Sleepyhead but can print a report in resscan no problem if they prefer that. Do doctors generally want to see the overall monthly data with a 30 day break down? Or are they interested in the Wav forms for the flow rate and events? Should I bookmark cluster of events with a zoomed in picture of the singular events and print that out. Just trying to get a general feel for what a doctor is looking for from the Cpap machine data, and what is most helpful to them?
Maybe I should just bring in the SD card and give it to them? I have been checking my data every day and specifically wanted to address the two days I woke up with a major headache (that was everyday before Cpap) with a cluster of CA singular events.
Thanks,
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - me50 - 02-18-2014
most docs just look at compliance although they should look at the detail. just because someone is compliant doesn't mean they aren't having issues and compliance data will not help to see if there is a trend that might be causing issues. Personally I provided a detailed report with all the data available. It doesn't mean the doc will look at it, especially during your office visit. They want to get the patient in and out as soon as they can so they can see as many patients in one day as possible. Medical care ain't what it used to be.
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - Bama Rambler - 02-18-2014
I've also been contemplating what I should print out to take to my next visit.
1) The summary, of course.
2) While I'm not having any problems I think it would be good to print enough detail that they'd get a good idea of daily (ok nightly) trends.
3) Any abnormalities you have. (i.e. your CA's)
4) I have a Pulse Oximeter so I'm going to take a couple of sessions from that and print it out so they can see how the spo2 is doing.
Since you're having CA's, I'd think you'd want to concentrate on those events and anything that may be related.
You want to take enough info, but you don't want so much that they immediately turn off from overload when you present it to them.
And lastly, I'd probably use ResScan to do the printing as they may not put as much faith in the report from Sleepyhead. Right, wrong or indifferent; they tend to assign more weight to the mfg's products.
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - SnuffySleeper - 02-18-2014
Hey me50,
Did you give them a print out of a report, or just give them your SD card and they copied the data locally? I have a feeling my doctor is going to brush it off too, but at least I will know i tried
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - SnuffySleeper - 02-18-2014
(02-18-2014, 10:32 AM)Bama Rambler Wrote: I've also been contemplating what I should print out to take to my next visit.
1) The summary, of course.
2) While I'm not having any problems I think it would be good to print enough detail that they'd get a good idea of daily (ok nightly) trends.
3) Any abnormalities you have. (i.e. your CA's)
4) I have a Pulse Oximeter so I'm going to take a couple of sessions from that and print it out so they can see how the spo2 is doing.
Since you're having CA's, I'd think you'd want to concentrate on those events and anything that may be related.
You want to take enough info, but you don't want so much that they immediately turn off from overload when you present it to them.
And lastly, I'd probably use ResScan to do the printing as they may not put as much faith in the report from Sleepyhead. Right, wrong or indifferent; they tend to assign more weight to the mfg's products.
Thanks, yeah that's what I was wondering. I wanted to keep the info down to a minimum well still communicating the CA events that I am hoping he will address.
You're right, I should probably use Resscan to print the report, I remember talking to a technician at the clinic and they had no idea what SleepyHead was but they knew Resscan. Even though I really prefer Sleepyhead I want to make it as simple as possible for them
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - Bompa - 02-18-2014
What I do in ResScan is create a Report of All Available Data for a desired period of tome, print it out and take it to Dr. It gives her all the info she needs.
Hope this helps.
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - retired_guy - 02-18-2014
My sleep doc wants me to bring in the machine itself anytime I come in. Then they take the card out of it and put it in their computer. Why not just bring the card? Well, they sort of assume most of their patients would not be able to do that.
I took in a couple of Sleepyhead pages that had data I thought was interesting. Recent pages though, and very few. Anything from further back than a few days doesn't count. It's kind of a "what have you done for me lately?" thing. And if you bring them a book to read, they'll say "thanks, I'll put this in your chart."
I did not consider taking in Resmed pictures because I assumed they had that, and I wanted them to know that patients could actually go find other stuff all by themselves.
They were impressed with the pics, and appreciated what I had brought them.
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - me50 - 02-18-2014
(02-18-2014, 10:32 AM)Bama Rambler Wrote: And lastly, I'd probably use ResScan to do the printing as they may not put as much faith in the report from Sleepyhead. Right, wrong or indifferent; they tend to assign more weight to the mfg's products.
I agree that you should take a ResScan print out. I had my former sleep doc tell me that he would prefer to see the data in the manufacturer's program.
next time I had an appointment with this sleep doc, I brought the ResScan print out and the SD card too. He then told me "Who knows how they calculate this data in this software"?
My comment: Well, it is the best data we have to go by so how they calculate it isn't an issue. If there are problems, this is all we have to show where the issues may be.
Then I fired him and found a better sleep doc. He was just lazy or wanted to move his patients through like cattle (my former sleep doc not the new one).
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - me50 - 02-18-2014
(02-18-2014, 10:33 AM)SnuffySleeper Wrote: Hey me50,
Did you give them a print out of a report, or just give them your SD card and they copied the data locally? I have a feeling my doctor is going to brush it off too, but at least I will know i tried
I did both and I am glad I did because my former sleep doc claimed his software wasn't working so I had the print outs from ResScan with me. Not that he looked at them (see post below).
RE: Best information to print out for your doctor's visit? - SnuffySleeper - 02-18-2014
Thanks everyone, it all helps a lot.
