Webinar: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Earlier Identification and Intervention of Hearing Loss in Medically Complex Infants
When: July 21, 2022 | 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm MT
Description
The Inpatient Audiology Program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital was developed almost 20 years ago. Since that time, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of infants and young children requiring audiologic evaluation and treatment at the bedside or in the OR. Providing inpatient audiologic services presents unique challenges which require distinct strategies encompassing care coordination, scheduling, staffing, equipment needs and modifications, additional safety and infection control monitoring, special considerations for amplification fitting and use, and processes to allow for seamless transition between inpatient and outpatient care. In the US we are seeing growing numbers of children with medical complexities, developmental delays, and childhood cancer.
Because these children also have increased risk for hearing, vestibular, and auditory processing disorders, it is critical that we do not overlook them because of the challenges that testing in the hospital environment may bring. This presentation will cover some of the challenges of developing and managing an inpatient program as well as lessons learned in our collaborative efforts to ensure that all populations of hospitalized infants and children have access to quality hearing healthcare.
Learning Objectives:
- Analyze challenges associated with inpatient audiology program development growth
- Discuss the increased numbers of hospitalized pediatric patients requiring inpatient evaluation and treatment utilizing current data and trends.
- Identify process modifications to improve audiologic care coordination for hospitalized infants and children.
Presenter
Kelly A. Baroch is a clinical audiologist with the Division of Audiology and the coordinator of the Inpatient Audiology and Infant Hearing and Screening Program, which she developed in 2003. She has given numerous state and national presentations on early identification and intervention of hearing loss in the medically complex population, auditory development in infants, and the effects of the NICU environment on sensory development. She provides clinical support on multiple research projects.
