SomSUMMIT 2022: The Right Therapy For the Right Patient at the Right Time
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About SomSummit ’22
SomnoMed North America recently held our second annual SomSummit, in Scottsdale, AZ. There we showed, by example, the power of physician-dentist collaborations as our Medical Initiative is intended to facilitate.
During SomSummit ‘22, we also highlighted the enormous opportunity to successfully treat more OSA patients in light of the astonishing statistics we see of undiagnosed, untreated OSA sufferers, and the growing recognition of PAP treatment shortcomings in effectiveness – and now, access. The focus centered on vetting the value of all therapies, and the fundamental research that supports them in improving, and even defining, OSA treatment “success”.

Topics included:
- The potentially waning value of AHI and prospective future approaches to better define and measure successful treatment;
- When and why to STOP likely-to-fail therapies based on “big data” statistics;
- Patient endotyping and phenotyping as a means to predict the most successful treatments outcomes;
- The potential to quickly triage patients from one failed or failing therapy to the next, and starting with patient choice as a likely factor in treatment success;
- And of course, all too familiar reminders of the stubborn and Startling OSA prevalence and treatment statistics that unify sleep health professionals of wildly diverse interests and expertise around a “North Star” urgency to Treat More OSA Patients, More Effectively

It’s truly humbling to gain a fuller perspective of the entire universe of solutions in sleep disordered breathing. It’s also daunting to contemplate the work needed to be done to make an impact, to move the needle, to address the gaps, and to ease the frictions that stand in the way of broader and more effective treatment of the persistently underestimated condition of OSA. The goal – the mission – for SomnoMed, however, is simple: to bring Oral Appliance Therapy into the primary OSA ecosystem as a prominent, clinically accepted, and accessible therapy for OSA sufferers among other therapies.

The Road To Treating More OSA Patients More Effectively
Under SomnoMed’s Medical Initiative structure and process, our team of Business Development Managers, dedicated to calling on prescribing physicians, serve as facilitators of physician-to-dentist relationship building. They introduce (only) the most highly qualified Dental Sleep Medicine providers to prescribers as colleagues and patient care partners.
Business Development Managers explore prescribers’ depth of awareness, understanding, and perceptions of Oral Appliance Therapy to address the barriers that prevent appropriate consideration of OAT as a means of achieving more successful OSA treatment outcomes.

In the discussions surrounding sleep disordered breathing, Oral Appliance Therapy must be central in supporting and accommodating the “right therapy for the right patient” approach. Oral Appliance Therapy is an effective choice for treating mild to moderate Obstructive Sleep Apnea. SomSummit ’22 helped to further confirm that patients and their physicians need dental sleep medicine.
Come SomSummit ’23, we’ll look back on progress made and move yet further ahead with new insight, experience, and perspective toward our common goal of one hundred percent effective OSA treatment. But the most important work to be done between now and then is at the local level; physician-by-physician, patient-by-patient. We’ll need a growing “army” of Dental Sleep Medicine and medical professionals, industry stakeholders, and key opinion leaders to show the successes, identify the failures, and address the real and perceived barriers to broader adoption of Oral Appliance Therapy as an effective choice, the right choice, for millions of OSA sufferers.
As our SomSummit ’22 co-chairs, Colleen Lance, MD and David Rapoport, MD, insightfully noted: “Never before has the specialty of sleep medicine been at such a turning point, poised with innovation in several key arenas. As a field, we are redefining what sleep apnea is and how to better measure and treat it.”
Join our Medical Initiative as a patient, sleep physician, or sleep dentist:
Physicians, contact us here: https://somnomed.com/en/physicians/physicians-contact/
Dentists, reach out to us here: https://somnomed.com/en/dentists/dentists-contact/
Patients, start your treatment journey here: https://somnomed.com/en/find-a-dental-sleep-medicine-expert/
Compare CPAP and oral appliances over a whole night’s sleep here: https://effectivenessequation.com/
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