History

The Sandman PSG system has an unusual history. Unlike the typical birthplace of PSG systems, Sandman was born from a ship rather than an EEG system. The first Sandman sleep diagnostic system was created in a DOS platform in 1992 by Melville Shipping Ltd.

Melville Shipping was an Ottawa-based ship design company that specialized in icebreakers. We designed everything from the accommodation barges to support oil development in the Arctic to icebreaking tugs and even large deep-sea transshipment stations for ore carriers. Apart from the design work, we were also involved heavily in Arctic ship research and ran numerous model tests on ships to evaluate the influence of ship size and shape on ice breaking performance.

Part of that research was the development of a data collection and analysis system to be used onboard ships. It was used to measure performance of the ship in ice and then correlate that to the performance of a model of the same ship in a model-testing basin. We would measure ship speed, propeller speed, and power and how the ship moved, rolled, pitched and heaved.

While we were working on these specialized projects, through a casual relationship with a sleep scientist in a local hospital, we visited our first sleep lab. The Sleep Scientist needed a flexible and powerful data acquisition system that would allow him to collect the data from his sleep study into his computer rather than onto paper. As a result, it was decided to modify the ship data collection software to measure sleep. We changed Propeller speed to EEG, Ship position to Body position and within a few weeks had a functional sleep data acquisition package. Initially the application focused on sleep research offering sophisticated custom flexibility and feature rich options. As the success of the "Sandman" system increased a separate software company was created, Melville Software Ltd. and subsequently Melville Diagnostics. The new software proved to be very successful in Canada and an FDA submission was made and accepted in 1993 for sale into the United States. Dedicated amplifiers were designed and introduced in 1993. Melville Software Ltd. was purchased by Nellcor in August 1995, amalgamated with Aequitron in 1997, purchased by Mallinckrodt in 1998, and purchased by Tyco International in 2000. We have been through our share of mergers and acquisitions, but throughout these changes the Sandman products have remained strong. Our focus on the delivering our customers products that exceed their expectations and backing it with support that is unparalleled in the industry has also remained consistent through these changes.

And as they say "the rest is history."

Joe Doria, Site Director
Sleep Diagnostics Division