STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Stephenville now offers a new wearable device that can help track your sleep and identify disorders such as sleep apnea. The device can be worn at home, enabling patients to sleep in their own beds rather than in a sleep clinic.

“We see patients who frequently get up in the middle the night and have trouble breathing but they’ve never been properly tested for sleep apnea,” said Naishadh Brahmbhatt, M.D., a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist on the medical staff at Texas Health Stephenville.

The device tracks a patient’s peripheral arterial tone, heart rate and oxygen saturation during sleep.

“It’s like wearing a watch, but it attaches to a pulse oximeter on one finger and a heart-monitoring sticker on the chest,” said Casey Accaputo, BHA, RRT, director of Cardiopulmonary at Texas Health Stephenville.

Before going to bed, patients put on the device and wear it until morning.

“People find it more comfortable than sleeping in a clinic,” Brahmbhatt added.

Sleep apnea is a disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. About 30 million adults in the U.S. are living with this condition, according to the American Lung Association.

“Most cases of sleep apnea are undiagnosed,” Brahmbhatt said. “Treatment is so important because it can lead to serious cardiovascular problems, including high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat.”

Texas Health Stephenville, which has three of the devices, is the first hospital in the Texas Health system to use the new technology.

To participate, patients must be age 18 and older and referred to the sleep study by their physician.

After the patient wears the device for one or two nights, it’s returned to the hospital, where the data it records is downloaded and reviewed by a pulmonologist. The results of the sleep study are then sent to the ordering physician.

“We are fortunate to offer outpatient services, like the sleep study, so members of our community don’t have to drive far in order to receive the care they need,” said Andrea Newman, M.H.A., B.S.N., R.N., CPHQ, chief nursing and professional services officer of Texas Health Stephenville.