Children’s Hospital Sleep Center receives accreditation

Yale New Haven Children's Hospital's Sleep Center has received accreditation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the national accrediting body for sleep centers. The YNHCH Sleep Center, which opened in 1989, and is directed by Sumit Bhargava, MD, provides clinical evaluation, diagnosis and management of all forms of respiratory and sleep disorders in infants and children up to 18 years. It is the only comprehensive sleep center in Connecticut dedicated solely to children.

"This gold standard accreditation assures patients that they are receiving the best diagnostic testing and patient care," said Dr. Bhargava, an attending physician in pediatric respiratory medicine at YNHCH and assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine. "We are proud to have met the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's high standards to receive accreditation as a sleep disorders center. The Sleep Center is a significant resource to the local community and provides academic and scientific value in addition to the highest quality care for children suffering from sleep disorders."

The sleep center studies about 500 infants, toddlers and children every year, of whom a significant percentage has underlying medical problems and benefit from the comprehensive assessment offered at the Sleep Center. The Standards for Accreditation ensures that sleep medicine providers display and maintain proficiency in areas such as testing procedures and policies, patient safety and follow-up, and physician and staff training.

Sleep disorders are common in children and often under diagnosed. Nearly 70 percent of children 10 and under experience some type of sleep problem, according to the National Sleep Foundation. The most common sleep disorders in children include behavioral sleep disorders such as sleep-onset association disorders and problems with limit-setting; rhythm disorders such as delayed sleep phase syndrome; sleep apnea; narcolepsy; parasomnia such as night terrors; sleepwalking; and bedwetting.