Unused Hotel Rooms
Become Sleep Clinics
When Christopher Aguirre showed up at the La Quinta Inn & Suites here, he didn't check in at the front desk. Instead, he walked through the lobby and took an elevator to the seventh floor. There, behind a frosted glass door, the 32-year-old prison chaplain went from being a guest to a patient.
Mr. Aguirre arrived with a prescription from his primary care doctor for a polysomnogram -- an overnight sleep test that can diagnose a range of sleep disorders. For Mr. Aguirre, nights of troubled slumber brought him to La Quinta for an evaluation by doctors and technicians who work for Sleepwell Laboratories Inc.
Similar scenarios are played out nightly at Sleepwell centers in hotels in Surprise, Ariz.; Salt Lake City; Houston and suburban Portland, Ore. The fledgling Encino, Calif., venture is carving a niche in the booming sleep test industry by finding hotels with low occupancies and renting blocks of rooms at discounts that Sleepwell says can run as deep as 50% off the average daily rate. Sleepwell converts the rooms into a medical clinic that quietly operates inside the hotel.
Sleep tests are widely used to diagnose ailments ranging from excessive snoring to sleep apnea, a potentially fatal condition in which a person's breathing gets dangerously shallow and can stop altogether. For Mr. Aguirre, who says he carries 325 pounds on his 5-foot-7-inch frame, the test confirmed his doctor's suspicion that Mr. Aguirre has sleep apnea. It's a growing medical problem in the U.S. that affects many heavy people, occurring when airways, narrowed by excess tissue, are blocked by the tongue or soft palate.
Sleep tests usually are performed in hospitals and medical office buildings. Some years ago, private ventures sprang up offering the tests in other kinds of commercial buildings. Now, the use of hotel rooms extends the move to lower-cost facilities that are more comfortable for the patient. And some busy hospitals that need their beds for traditional patient care are shifting their sleep centers into leased hotel rooms.
That's what one hospital did when it needed more space. Spartanburg Regional Hospital, in South Carolina, recently moved its sleep center into six rooms at the Marriott at Renaissance Park, less than a mile away. It's a far cry from the old facility, located next to the intensive-care unit. That space is still used to test patients too ill to stay in a hotel. But most patients seeking a sleep evaluation clearly prefer the Marriott.
"The volume of calls requesting the study has shown a sharp spike recently because everyone wants to be over at the hotel," says Dr. Wilson Smith, medical director of Spartanburg's sleep center. "The Marriott has a quality name, and people know they're going to have a good sleep experience." The hospital signed a one-year lease at the end of April for the six rooms at the hotel, which is managed by Marriott International Inc. It is considering adding more because of a long patient waiting list.
For hotels, the arrangements are a good way to lock in rooms for the long term while shrinking the inventory of empty rooms that they struggle to fill during economic downturns. Sleepwell says it pays hotels about $13,000 a month for 10 to 14 rooms -- which, in the case of the La Quinta in Mesa, represented half off the hotel's online daily rate yesterday of $65 to $79 for one night's stay in a deluxe king room.
Inside the hotels, the clinics keep a very low profile. The Sleepwell rooms aren't apparent to regular guests, much like the special areas that hotels have created for airline crews and long-haul truck drivers, says Wayne Goldberg, executive vice president of operations at La Quinta Corp., based in Dallas. "No one knows the difference between a customer that's coming to the sleep center and our average hotel customer," he adds. "It doesn't look like a medical facility at all."
In fact, it was a poor sleep test experience in Los Angeles two years ago that spurred entrepreneur David Kaye to start Sleepwell. After a restless night at a sleep center in a high-rise office building, Mr. Kaye says he was told the next morning by the clinic staff that the closest shower was at his home. "Overall, it was just a really unpleasant experience," recalls the 68-year-old former investment banker.
At Sleepwell, patients typically arrive at the hotel a few hours before their regular bedtime. They check in at the Sleepwell reception center and are free to use the hotel facilities including restaurants, bar, swimming pool and fitness center. "They get access to all of the hotel amenities as any guest would," says La Quinta's Mr. Goldberg. When patients are ready for bed, technicians spend about an hour hooking them up to sensors that monitor everything from brain waves to heart rate and even how many times a person kicks during the night.
Technicians in the control room monitor the sensors, as well as video and infrared footage taken from wall-mounted cameras. Patients are encouraged to wake up at their normal time. Sleepwell says it's a restful atmosphere, yet a controlled and state-of-the-art sleep clinic. "We know people absolutely don't sleep in hospitals or doctor's offices," says Paul Saskin, a psychologist and sleep expert who is Sleepwell's chief operating officer.
Sleepwell charges about $1,300 for a one-night sleep test, less than many hospital-based centers. Most tests are conducted to confirm a suspected diagnosis of sleep apnea. A second test is often required to fit the sleeping patient with a mask connected to a machine that keeps the airways open. The machine, which forces air into a patient's lungs, is the most common remedy for sleep apnea.
Sleepwell says nearly 80% of its patients are diagnosed with sleep apnea. That's not unusual, physicians say. "I wouldn't be surprised if 80% was even a bit low," says Rafael Pelayo, assistant professor at Stanford University Medical Center's Sleep Disorders Clinic.
Sleepwell says since it opened its first lab in June 2003, it has rung up some $1.5 million in revenue from the sale of the machines used to treat sleep apnea, which cost from $1,500 to $2,200. Medical supply companies typically sell them for between $800 and $1,200, says an executive at Respironics Inc., a Murrysville, Pa., maker of the devices.
Some health-insurance companies reimburse patients for much of the cost of the test and the machine. Mr. Aguirre, the Sleepwell patient, says he paid $50 out of his own pocket the night he arrived for his test, and his insurer, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, has paid for the rest.
Demand for sleep tests is rising as research shows that many health problems, including depression and even attention-deficit disorders in children, may be caused by sleep deficits. Sleepwell says it has tested about 1,900 people since its inception. It employs about 45 people and sells stakes in individual locations to some 200 individual investors in what it calls a "joint ownership program"; Sleepwell retains full operational control.
"There is greater recognition within the medical community that this is a valid area of study," says Lawrence Epstein, associate professor at Harvard Medical School. The pulmonologist is also regional medical director of Sleep HealthCenter, a Boston-based venture that conducts tests in medical office buildings. "Where a sleep test is conducted is less important than having a trained staff and a structured testing and treatment plan for any patient undergoing a sleep study," he says.
As for Mr. Aguirre, he says he felt great the morning after his night at La Quinta -- hooked up to the breathing machine. He says his whole body tingled from the extra oxygen he had received during the night, and he "went home wide awake for the first time in a long time."
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