Polysomnographic Technologist

The Polysomnographic Technologist works under medical supervision to perform and evaluate overnight polysomnograms.

This individual functions independently to safely operate sophisticated medical equipment to record sleep/wake physiology.

The application of recording devices, cleaning/sterilization of equipment and monitoring of polysomnogram are essential duties of the technologist.

Polysomnographic technologists must recognize sleep pathology when it occurs in the laboratory and respond with the appropriate interventions to ensure patient safety.

Knowledge of normal cardiorespiratory, neurologic, and sleep physiology is essential to the polysomnographic technologist.

The technologist understands the function of equipment used to monitor and record breathing (airflow/effort), electroencephalograms (brain waves), electrocardiograms (heart rate and rhythm), electromyograms (muscle activity), and pulse oximetry (blood oxygenation/saturation).

The polysomnographic technologist monitors nasal continuous positive pressure, oxygen, and employs ventilatory assistance devices in accordance with established protocols.

This individual is also Certified in Basic Life Support.

The technologist also performs special procedures such as multiple sleep latency testing, pediatric polysomnography, ambulatory monitoring, and patient education.

Record review/scoring of polysomnograms is an integral part of the job and may consume as much time as data acquisition.

The identification of normal/abnormal patterns, artifacts, and sleep/wake stages is critical to high quality patient care.

The polysomnographic technologist generates a report that accurately and concisely summarizes the patient’s sleep/wake stages, respiratory events, cardiac events, limb movements, arousal analysis, and other clinical events.