2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
3/04/2019 | 2:50 PM - 3:15 PM | Tele-Audiology: Taking Pediatric Audiologists to the Frontier | London
Tele-Audiology: Taking Pediatric Audiologists to the Frontier
One of the most difficult challenges for meeting 1-3-6 EHDI goals is getting a diagnosis of hearing status before three months of age. This is especially true for families in rural and frontier communities who do not have local access to an audiologist with expertise in infant diagnostic testing. Often these families have limited resources making travel to a diagnostic center difficult. In an effort to alleviate these significant barriers, reduce lost-to-follow-up and meet EHDI goals, the Utah EHDI team is utilizing telehealth technology to conduct remote diagnostic ABR evaluations. At the State EHDI office in Salt Lake City, an EHDI Audiologist conducts an infant ABR assessment in collaboration with a Women’s and Newborns nurse at the birthing hospital. The nurse at the remote site is trained in equipment setup, infant prep, and facilitates the testing in partnership with the host site audiologist. This presentation will describe the telehealth service proposal, equipment used, challenges faced and adjustments made along the way. Utah EHDI has been providing tele-audiology services for the past 7 years, showing that Tele-ABRs are beyond proof of concept. With the right stakeholders, it is ready to be utilized in any community.
- How to remotely set up an infant diagnostic ABR service
- Describe the challenges involved for tele-ABR diagnostic testing, both from the audiologist and hospital attendant
- Real life tele-ABR scenarios from the trenches
Presentation:
This presentation has not yet been uploaded.
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
18878_10361ShannonWnek.doc
Presenters/Authors
Shannon Wnek
(), Utah Dept of Health and Human Services, swnek@utah.gov;
Dr. Wnek is the Utah Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) Audiology Coordinator, responsible for providing audiological and programmatic support to birthing facilities, hospital audiologists and midwives across the state. In addition, she regularly completes Quality Assurance activities and is considered the “Utah EHDI Compliance Officer”. Clinically, Dr. Wnek graduated with her Doctor of Audiology from the University of Utah in 2009 and is a pediatric audiologist at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, Children with Special Healthcare Needs Office. She is a graduate of the URLEND (Utah Regional Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities) program with a special emphasis on Infant and Pediatric Audiology. Her interests include early identification of hearing loss, quality assurance and improvement, tele-ABRs and supporting families of children with special healthcare needs.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
Stephanie Merrell
(), Uintah Basin Healthcare, stephanie_merrell@ubh.org;
Stephanie Merrell is the nurse manager for labor and delivery, postpartum and newborn nursery at Uintah Basin Medical Center in Roosevelt, Utah with 20+years' experience. She loves being a nurse and the joy of helping mothers bring a new baby into the world. The past two years Stephanie has been working to bring TeleHealth: Newborn Critical Care and Tele-Audiology to UBMC. Her goal is to keep babies with their moms at UBMC and avoid a 150 miles trip to the city for a newborn ABR test.
Stephanie earned her Associates of Science in nursing from Weber State University, her Bachelor of Science degree from University of Phoenix, and her Masters of Science in nursing from Westerns Governors University. As a wife and mother of four, Stephanie loves to spend her free time with her family sitting on a beach reading a murder mystery and drinking a cold Coke.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -