2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
4/15/2013 | 11:05 AM - 12:05 AM | Comprehensive Infant Diagnostic Audiology Evaluations Via Telemedicine | Cascade G | 8
Comprehensive Infant Diagnostic Audiology Evaluations Via Telemedicine
California has reached a crisis in access to appropriate pediatric audiology for infants who do not pass their newborn hearing screen. A study conducted in 2005 by Mathematica Policy Research identified California as one of the states with the fewest audiologists per capita (2 per 10,000 or fewer). To compound the situation, only a single Au.D. program is operating in California with a maximum enrollment of 10 candidates per year. With nearly 511,000 births annually and a two-stage screening process, each year over 2800 infants require a diagnostic evaluation with approximately 1000 infants identified with hearing loss. Of the 70 facilities approved to see children under three years of age, only one practice between Sacramento and the Oregon border is willing to see low-income infants. The size and the topography of the region, as well as the shortage of pediatric audiology providers, results in overwhelming obstacles to infants receiving timely quality diagnostic services. In 2010 the lost to follow up rate in that region was 22% as compared to 4.5% statewide for that stage of the program.
In response, the California Newborn Hearing Screening Program has partnered with the University of California Davis Health System on a teleaudiology pilot project with grant funding from Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The project provides comprehensive infant diagnostic evaluations via telemedicine. This presentation will review data to date and the approaches and obstacles in developing, implementing, and sustaining the project, including remote site location, referral process, diagnostic procedures, counseling for hearing loss via telemedicine, ongoing management of infants identified with hearing loss, and strategies for long-term sustainability.
- Identify key partners in the development and implementation of a teleaudiology project
- List at least 3 issues that need to be considered before implementing a teleaudiology project
- Describe the diagnostic procedures utilized through the California Teleaudiology Project.
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Presenters/Authors
Hallie Morrow
(Author), California Newborn Hearing Screening Program, hallie.morrow@dhcs.ca.gov;
Hallie W. Morrow, M.D., M.P.H., has been a program medical consultant with the California Department of Health Care Services, Children’s Medical Services Branch since 1997. She is responsible for the development and implementation of the California Newborn Hearing Screening Program, including program standards, outreach materials, and provider education efforts. She received her bachelor of arts degree in biology, summa cum laude, from Washington University, graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine, and earned her Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. She is board certified in Pediatrics and was in clinical pediatric practice for six years with The Permanente Medical Group, Inc. in Northern California. Dr. Morrow has worked in Public Health administration since 1991. She served as the Maternal and Child Health Director for Solano County, California for six years before joining the California Department of Health Care Services.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
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Jennifer Sherwood
(POC,Primary Presenter,Author), California Department of Health Care Services, jennifer.sherwood@dhcs.ca.gov;
Jennifer Sherwood earned her master’s degree in Audiology from San Jose State University. Jennifer’s primary area of interest has been pediatric audiology from early on in her career. She joined the California Newborn Hearing Screening Program at the California Department of Health Care Services in 1999 following her position as an audiologist and clinic manager at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford. Jennifer’s focus currently is on improving the standard of care and access to quality services for infants and children in California.
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Nonfinancial -