For far too long, the assessment of sleep has been confined to lab environments that fail to capture the reality of a typical night’s rest. These environments are costly, time-intensive, restrict access to patients and paint an incomplete picture of this critical pillar of human health. However, consistent core digital measures are needed to push sleep studies into more naturalistic environments to ensure accurate and reliable measurement.
Recognizing this need, DATAcc by DiMe embarked on an ambitious journey convening experts from around the world to understand the barriers facing sleep research and clinical practice. Our goal was to develop core measures to collect sleep data remotely with sensor-based digital health technologies (sDHTs) that make sleep assessment more accessible, transparent, and interpretable for all.
I am thrilled to share that we succeeded in our quest and collectively developed the Core Digital Measures of Sleep and resources to support researchers and clinicians looking to study sleep and increase the availability of high-quality, standardized, and transparent sleep research in the naturalistic environment across therapeutic areas. Together, we conducted a narrative review of clinically important aspects of sleep, systematically retrieved patient relevant aspects of sleep disturbance from the qualitative literature, and assessed the technological landscape to confirm the maturity of products to collect data on different potential measures.
These core measures represent clinically important aspects of sleep and sleep disturbance that matter most to clinicians and patients. Moreover, they leverage mature digital health technologies, enabling immediate implementation for sleep measurement outside of the lab setting, in the comfort of one’s own home.
Whether you’re a researcher looking to incorporate sleep assessment into your studies, a developer aiming to create cutting-edge sleep measurement tools, a clinician seeking to better understand and address your patients’ sleep health, or an individual interested in monitoring your own sleep behavior, DATAcc by DiMe’s Core Measures of Sleep and resources are here to support you.
These new, groundbreaking resources allow you to create additional sleep measures according to research requirements while ensuring transparent and accurate measurements. These resources will improve efficiencies and make digital clinical measures more effective, thereby helping you transform research and care to advance vital human function.
We are confident that this important work will transform the field of sleep research and care. By consistently measuring this critical aspect of health using optimized digital tools, we can drive better interventions, more personalized care, and improved overall population health.
In addition to the new core digital measures set and resources, sleep digital measurement products have been added to the Library of Digital Measurement Products, launched in October 2023 by DATAcc.
