The AMH Sleep Lab has earned accreditation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The required protocols, policies and documents for the expedited process to obtain accreditation was compiled and submitted to the AASM within 90 days. Due to the thoroughness of the documents submitted, the AASM granted immediate accreditation. A site visit survey on Jan. 15 received an excellent review to complete the process.

"Congratulations to our staff for an excellent job," said Penny Krause, manager of the Sleep Lab. "Early last year we received notification that sleep labs that were not accredited could no longer perform sleep studies for Medicare patients. Knowing that this would create a hardship for our patients and require them to travel further away from their homes for sleep testing, the sleep lab staff immediately began working to complete the required protocols, policies and documents. With the already excellent in-place practices of the sleep lab, what typically takes more than a year of preparation, was compiled and submitted to the AASM within 90 days."

The site visit survey, which is where someone from the AASM visits the sleep lab to verify that the lab is indeed practicing to the standards at which they submitted, involved interviews and reviews for more than eight hours with the lab’s staff and Dr. Ajitesh Rai, medical director of the Sleep Lab.

Once again, the lab was given an excellent review and was granted full accreditation status to perform all in-center and home sleep apnea testing. 

For more information about the Sleep Lab, call 618-463-7545.

Pictured above: ​Staff members from the Alton Memorial Hospital Sleep Diagnostics Center received a cake as a result of being accredited by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine earlier this year. Staff includes, left to right, Rachel Hill, manager Penny Krause, Synthia Forsythe, Karon Signorino, Julie Hodge, Lynne Kloempken and Sandy Rongey. Dr. Ajitesh Rai is the medical director of the Sleep Lab.