Construction and utilization of an integrated database to support hearing aid clinic operations

Abstract

For the successful fitting of hearing aids in Japan, physicians, speech-language-hearing therapists, and hearing aid technicians must share background information about the patient's reasons for seeking hearing healthcare, as well as their test results, such as their pure tone audiogram and speech audiogram. In other words, people who adjust hearing aids should organize the patient's subjective and objective data in chronological order. We constructed a database (hereafter referred to as DB) to organize this vast amount of information. This system allows users to view the patient's comprehensive case history, the initial assessment of their hearing difficulty, the subjective assessment of hearing aid sounds, and how the medical staff responded to patient complaints on a single screen. In this DB, we can switch the screen with one click to easily view chronological changes in hearing aid adjustment. The use of this DB has made it easier for medical staff to assess a patient's condition and encourage active discussions at conferences. This DB is expected to support hearing aid adjustments and multi-professional collaboration, leading to more efficient and satisfactory fittings.