The Modern Hearing Care Landscape: Toward the Provision of Personalized, Dynamic, and Adaptive Care

Abstract

New technologies and developments in hearing healthcare are rapidly transforming service models, delivery channels, and available solutions. These advances are reshaping the ways in which care is provided, leading to greater personalization, service efficiencies, and improved access to care, to name a few benefits. Connected hearing care is one model with the potential to embrace this “customized” hearing experience by forging a hybrid of health–technology connections, as well as traditional face-to-face interactions between clients, providers, and persons integral to the care journey. This article will discuss the many components of connected care, encompassing variations of traditional and teleaudiology-focused services, clinic-based and direct-to-consumer channels, in addition to the varying levels of engagement and readiness defining the touch points for clients to access a continuum of connected hearing care. The emerging hearing healthcare system is one that is dynamic and adaptive, allowing for personalized care, but also shifting the focus to the client's needs and preferences. This shift in the care model, largely driven by innovation and the growing opportunities for clients to engage with hearing technology, brings forth new, exciting, and sometimes uncomfortable discussion points for both the provider and client. The modern hearing care landscape benefits clients to better meet their needs and preferences in a more personalized style, and providers to better support and address those needs and preferences.

Centering on People: How Hearing Care Professionals Can Adapt to Consumers' Need and Outcomes

“…As explained by Holder et al, the consumer's journey with hearing loss is a never-ending story for which no two points are the same. 12 Hearing tests and fitting new hearing aids may be periodically repeated; however, each occasion fundamentally is based on needs that were shaped by the previous experiences and the passage of time with that experience at the very least. A younger consumer population are more likely to be still working, implicating their vocational need when selecting a flexible service offering.…”

“…With the implementation of choice in services, technology, and channel across any model of care a provider may choose, 1 the purpose of this article is to encourage hearing health care professionals to adopt a new mindset of doing whatever is reasonably and clinically appropriate to meet consumers' need and wants. By doing this, hearing healthcare providers are putting the need of the person first, 12 hopefully encouraging further improvement of consumer outcomes. The distinction between using a person-centered approach and standard current practice is discussed.…”

Exploring Hearing Care Technology from Clinic to Capability

“…This may mean a shift in how we currently practice hearing rehabilitation, to one that incorporates more continuous data input and on the spot feedback from consumers, with expectations that match how the consumer expects the healthcare professional to delivery services. 33 Specifically, consumers will not be limited to traditional appointment structures or a 9-to-5 schedule to obtain updates or feedback on their devices or situations they are in, rather the data clinicians will receive will allow dynamic, personalized feedback to the consumer, and perhaps in a real-time manner (synchronous). These changes speak to the recognition and drive to support person-centered standards of care that are fundamental to improving outcomes in chronic health management like hearing care.…”

In-situ Audiometry Compared to Conventional Audiometry for Hearing Aid Fitting

“…The approach was originally introduced by Widex to improve the accuracy of the hearing aid fitting ( Ludvigsen & Tøpholm, 1997 ) and has gained further attention in recent years in the context of connected hearing care or teleaudiology. Its lower resource and equipment requirements, compared to the recommended clinical standard involving conventional audiometry and real-ear measurements (REM), make it appealing and potentially suitable for remote hearing aid fitting and locations lacking standard audiometric equipment ( Boymans & Dreschler, 2017 ; Convery et al, 2019 ; Glista et al, 2023 ; Wong, 2011 ).…”