Clinical/Preceptor Education (PE)
Yunfang Zheng
Professor, Audiology Division Director
Central Michigan University
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, Michigan
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Lin Xia, BS
Central Michigan University, Michigan
Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant financial relationships with anything to disclose.
Non-Financial Disclosures: I do not have any relevant non-financial relationships with anything to disclose.
The purpose of this study was to create a handbook to help audiologists improve the efficiency and accuracy of hearing aid selection. Seven manufactures’ programming software and professional websites were reviewed to collect the characteristics of each current hearing aid in the market. Over 500 hearing aids from those manufacturers were classified according to the common and effective selection procedure. For easy access, hyphen links were built in to direct to specific products, features, and further technology explanations. Audiologists could follow each step to select the proper hearing aids to improve patient satisfaction.
Summary:
Appropriate hearing aid selection is essential to patient satisfaction with hearing aids. Studies have found that a successful hearing aid selection should consider the auditory capability, hearing aid experience, and functional preference from an individual patient and the physical, acoustic, and psychoacoustic characteristics from hearing aid products (e.g., Lee et al., 2021; Prakash et al., 2022; Saleh, 2022). This multifactor consideration brought a considerable challenge for inexperienced audiologists and even experienced audiologists with intense clinical work. In addition, psychological factors from clinicians may bring a bias on clinical decision (Ly, 2021). Currently, the amount of hearing aid feature choices has led to increased complexity in the selection process (Saleh, 2022). However, there is no specific hearing aid selection guideline or handbook summarizing current hearing aid information across different hearing aid manufactures. This study intended to create a handbook summarizing hearing aid information from seven major manufacturers to help audiologists select appropriate hearing aids for patients, improve clinical efficiency and reduce the influence of psychological factors on the selection of hearing aids.
Seven manufactures’ programming software including Phonak Target, Unitron TrueFit, Oticon Genie 2, Widex Compass GPS, Resound Smart Fit, Starkey Inspire X, Signia Connexx 9 were reviewed to collect the characteristics of each current hearing aid in the market. Hearing aid manufacturer's professional websites were also assessed to obtain additional feature/application information. Information obtained were compiled and summarized using excel software. Based on the literature review and current clinical practice experiences, a common and efficient hearing aid selection procedure was implied in this handbook to classify hearing aids to meet the needs of different hearing losses and possible functional needs from individual patients. Hyphen links were used to direct to specific features related to each product to facilitate the search and comparison.
More than 500 hearing aids from the seven manufacturers were categorized in the order of hearing aids style, hearing aid power, rechargeability, Telecoil accessibility, and additional hearing aid features. The hearing aids were divided into Behind the ear, Receiver in the canal, and customized styles. The power level was classified to fit to three groups of hearing losses: mild to moderate, moderately-severe to severe, and profound hearing loss. The additional features of each hearing aid include technology level/environment compatibility, main technology, color option, and compatible accessory of the device and for hearing aid programming. Hyphen links were built in the catalog part to direct to specific products. A specific technology explanation for each hearing aid was added after the category and be linked to the main feature under the overview of hearing aid. Audiologists would be able to click each hyphen link and follow each step to get several hearing aids, use the overview information to compare each hearing aid, and make final decisions based on patient needs and preference.
Comprehensive hearing aid information included in this handbook with easy access and comparison will facilitate hearing aid selection process and lead to improved clinical efficiency and patients' satisfaction with hearing aids.