Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Paper

3. Topic: Universal Newborn Hearing Screening
To have a successful implementation of an EHDI program it is important to make it cost effective, minimize the referral rate, and communicate the benefits and effectiveness of universal newborn hearing screenings. According to NCHAM’s article on the Issues and Evidence of Universal Newborn Hearing Screenings, all studies that have been done on their cost effectiveness were used on out of date equipment and cannot be used to draw true conclusions on the subject. If a team were to take the time and effort to construct a truly effective study on the monetary benefits of UNHS, we could give a concrete answer to support our cause. The best way to minimize referral rate is to make sure you have the
When this protocol is followed, a patient will be in auditory intervention by six months of age which has been proven in multiple studies including Yoshinaga-Itano and Moeller’s studies published in Pediatrics in the last 20 years, that they will have higher language abilities than their peers who also have hearing loss, but were not identified and did not start intervention as early as they did. In Holte et al,’s study on how well children move through the EDHI process, only 32% met all benchmarks on time out of 193 children who failed their NBHS. This proves that there is still more growth to be done in the screening process, but 75% of the 193 children were enrolled in early intervention by the 6 month benchmark, so I believe that we are heading in the right direction as far as implementing these benchmarks from JCIH. Norton et al. announced in 2000 that two of the major benefits of the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening process were that it has acceptable sensitivity and specificity and it is very likely catch all moderate-profound losses. When these losses are caught, we can intervene sooner and give the infant the best chance at having high language skills. Two of the biggest challenges of UNHS are that it is very difficult to reduce the loss to follow-up rate and that it is also challenging to distinguish normal hearing from mild losses, so it is possibly to miss mild losses even if the child has been screened. Thankfully, these losses have the least effect on language development and aren’t as damaging as more severe losses. As far as losing patients to follow-up, it would be highly beneficial to develop a more effective education program to inform parents on the dangers of not addressing hearing loss in infants and the extreme benefits of getting their children a true diagnosis and getting