As part of a major strategy shift, Wallingford’s Gaylord Hospital is getting out of the sleep medicine business.
The long-term acute care provider, which generated $72 million in fiscal 2012 revenue, is closing its four Connecticut sleep lab locations and has agreed to sell its sleep equipment business — Gaylord Sleep Medicine Equipment — to Norwood, Mass.’s National Sleep Therapy.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the sleep equipment business, which supplies sleep disorder breathing devices like continuous positive airway pressure machines, will temporarily change its name to Gaylord National Sleep Therapy. Next year, it will be rebranded National Sleep Therapy of Connecticut.
Meantime, the four sleep lab locations that will close are in Glastonbury, North Haven, Trumbull, and Guilford. Each provided sleep disorder diagnosis and treatments for adults and children. Yale-New Haven Hospital and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center have agreed to take on some of Gaylord’s sleep patients, according to regulatory documents filed with the state Office of Health Care Access.
Tara A. Knapp, Gaylord Hospital’s vice president of development and public relations, said the recent moves were part of the medical center’s strategy to exit a money losing sleep medicine business and focus on its core competency caring for medically complex patients and providing rehabilitation. Gaylord specializes in brain and spinal cord injury, stroke, pulmonary disease and patients with post-surgical complications.
The sleep disorder business, Knapp said, has changed significantly in recent years as the industry moves away from in-lab testing to in-home testing. That took a bite out of Gaylord’s patient base making its sleep business unprofitable. Its Glastonbury location, for example, saw its patient volume drop 27 percent in fiscal 2013 to 973 visits, down from 1,339 visits a year earlier, OHCA data shows. In fiscal 2012, Gaylord Hospital’s parent reported a $3.6 million operating loss.
“Sleep medicine has been an important part of our mission,” Knapp said. “However, this move will allow Gaylord to focus all its energies on growing its inpatient and outpatient programs.”
The sleep medicine business has been competitive in recent years. It is estimated that more than 18 million American adults have obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing is briefly and repeatedly interrupted during sleep. It’s also a common ailment patients seek help for.
In Greater Hartford there are a number of players in the sleep medicine industry. Hartford Hospital provides treatment services in Wethersfield; St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford; Eastern Connecticut Health Network in Manchester; and ProHealth in West Hartford, among others.
Gaylord opened its Glastonbury location in 2007. National Sleep Therapy also has locations in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
