HELPing people with hearing loss

On the first episode, host Saira Hussain, a clinician and academic, is joined by three fellow academics from Aston University’s Audiology department. Dr Helen Pryce, Dr Amanda Hall and Dr Georgina Burns-O'Connell discuss the Hearing Loss and Patient Reported Experience (HELP) project, in which audiology patients with hearing loss helped to improve audiology services through the development of a new method to measure their lived experience. When a patient with a hearing loss arrives at a clinic, their audiologist will use a variety of ways to determine, for example, how well their hearing aids are helping them functionally. This is known as a patient reported outcome measure or PROM. However, this doesn’t measure what the patient is experiencing in day-to-day life.Helen said:“Two people can have identical levels of hearing, but have quite different kinds of functional behaviour. Some people hear better in noise than others, even with the same level of hearing, for example. “What we haven't ever known actually is what it is like for people when they have a hearing loss. And that matters because when you have a hearing loss for the most part, you are going to be living with that hearing loss for the whole of your life.”By talking to patients, their friends and family members, and their clinicians, the HELP team were able to develop a tool known as a patient reported experience measure, or PREM. The PREM is a questionnaire around three concepts - emotional impact, communication and support – to learn about what a patient is really experiencing every day. Not only can this PREM be used by clinicians to better help their patients, the simplicity of it means it can also be used by someone with a hearing loss with their family and friends. It offers a structured and easy way to open up conversations with family and friends about their everyday experience of living with hearing loss, improving support.Saira said:“The My Hearing PREM is a great example of a collaborative tool designed with both patients and clinicians in mind. It has been created to support and enhance the care already provided by audiology professionals, and the HELP study ensured this focus remained central throughout the development process. Integrating the tool into audiology software makes it easier for clinicians to begin using it in everyday practice.”Find out more: -My Hearing PREM - http://www.aston.ac.uk/premAston Audiology - https://www.aston.ac.uk/hls/audiology-and-health-sciencesAudiology and Healthcare Science courses - https://www.aston.ac.uk/hls/audiology-and-health-sciences/courses