dayzz, an AI-based smartphone app designed to identify and help treat sleep disorders, was part of a study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The study protocol, published online in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, describes the clinical trial, which was conducted completely remotely, allowing for large-scale recruitment and broader participant diversity.
“Sleep problems are highly prevalent but often underdiagnosed,” Charles Czeisler, MD, PhD, FRCP, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, says in a statement. “The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has evidenced even higher rates of sleep problems among the general population, and particularly healthcare workers.”
The sleep intervention is conducted using the digital app platform, providing people with personalized sleep treatment plans, contextual nudges, sleep management tools, and a clinically validated sleep assessment. For identified participants at risk for sleep apnea, the remote trial includes an in-app digital referral to Brigham’s Sleep Clinic for a telemedicine consultation and home sleep testing, enabling comprehensive end-to-end wellness and a medically guided journey.
“Given the increase in sleep and fatigue-related workplace disturbances and associated productivity, medical and safety costs, an urgency has been arising among organizations to find proven, accessible, and scalable solutions to remotely evaluate and treat sleep among their workers,” says the company’s chief science officer, Mairav Cohen-Zion, PhD, in a press release. “This study aims to measure the impact of sleep improvement on financial and medical KPIs in an employee population within a large organization.”