Overview-Healthcare for People with Hearing Loss
Patients with hearing loss can be hesitant to ask for accommodations, and these accommodations are rarely offered without requests. It is imperative that health professionals realize the high prevalence of hearing loss in all populations and proactively offer services that enable patients with hearing loss to understand the critical information communicated by healthcare professionals.
Below are some technological solutions for communicating effectively with people with hearing loss. These provide “auxiliary aids and services” under Effective Communication with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The patient may bring their own personal equipment; however, the medical provider must have the necessary equipment on hand.
Communication barriers associated with hearing loss or deafness are linked to poorer health status. People who are deaf or hard of hearing are also more likely than hearing patients to report dissatisfaction with physician-patient communication and less likely to seek out care. Effective communication is critical to providing high-quality care because relying on untrained individuals to interpret can lead to poorer health outcomes or even death. Poor communication between patients who are deaf or hard of hearing and hearing clinicians can lead to misdiagnoses, unnecessary transfers, mistreatment, poor assessments, and unintentional harm with negative consequences.
Improving Communication Access for Individuals Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing (2023). Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Practical Techniques – Communication Access
- ACCESS. ACCESS is a framework of six core principles for communication in healthcare settings. People with communication disabilities often find it hard to get the information and communication supports they need to fully access health services and programs. This can lead to less-than-ideal outcomes for everyone involved. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), Better Health Starts with Effective Communication program
Patient Experiences
- Patient Experiences (blogs, articles)
Statistics
Technology
- Assistive listening systems Assistive listening systems (Supplied by Provider)
- Captions
- Captions-Human generated (CART) (Supplied by Provider)
- Captions-Computer generated (speech-to-text) (Supplied by Provider or patient-owned)
- Personal Amplifiers. Personal Amplification (Supplied by Provider or patient-owned). Technological solutions for communicating effectively with people with hearing loss. The patient may bring their own personal equipment; however, the medical provider must have the necessary equipment on hand, under the ADA.
- Remote microphones. Remote Microphones (Patient-owned and provided)
Handouts
- Handouts. Handouts.
Blog
- To receive blogs, vlogs, and other content on this important issue, sign up on the HealthcareWithHearingLoss.com website. More information (this website)
Resources
- Complaints. Where to submit healthcare complaints
- Resources, General. Healthcare resources. Curated videos, whitepapers, articles, webinars
- Resources, Technical: Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). ADA & Healthcare
Vendors
- Personal amplification
- Service counter hearing loops
- Medical masks with clear windows for lipreading/speechreading
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