2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
3/19/2024 | 11:00 AM - 11:25 AM | Targeted approach to improve hospital newborn hearing screening fail rates | Mineral Hall F/G
Targeted approach to improve hospital newborn hearing screening fail rates
Tennessee EHDI staff regularly monitor hearing screening fail rate data by birthing facility. In response to high fail rates (>5%) at specific facilities, a targeted intervention plan was developed. This included the creation of an internal dashboard by the TN EHDI epidemiologist to display facility-specific fail rates by month or by quarter, monthly meetings between the Education Nurse and contracted Audiology consultant to review data trends, and targeted outreach to identified facilities. The Education Nurse and Audiology Consultant met with hospital personnel via virtual conference calls and site visits to share facility-specific data, review best practices, help hospital staff identify causes of high fail rates at their facility, and determined actionable items to improve outcomes. Such actions included staffing changes, reporting protocols, timing of hearing screening, additional training on hearing screening technique, parent education, and internal tracking mechanisms to ensure fail rates remain stable. This presentation will review Tennessee’s process for monitoring hospital screening data, explore outcomes from Tennessee’s targeted intervention efforts, and suggest actionable items for effective targeted intervention with hospital facilities that other EHDI programs can employ.
- Participants will be able to identify three contributing factors to high hospital newborn hearing screening fail rates.
- Participants will examine procedures utilized by Tennessee EHDI to improve hospital newborn hearing screening fail rates.
- Participants will be able to apply methods learned to improve fail rates in their facilities.
Presentation:
3478265_16364HolliAllen.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
3478265_16364BrittanyDay.docx
Presenters/Authors
Brittany Day
(Primary Presenter), Vanderbilt University Medical Center, brittany.day@vumc.org;
Brittany Day, AuD, CCC-A is a pediatric audiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and is the contracted Audiology Consultant to the Tennessee EHDI program. Her clinical specialties includes early hearing detection and intervention and electrophysiologic evaluation and management of medically complex infants and children. She previously directed the inpatient pediatric audiology and newborn hearing screening clinical program at VUMC. Brittany volunteers as the Tennessee Professional Mentor for the Student Academy of Audiology State Ambassador Program and as Clinical Director of the Tennessee Special Olympics Healthy Hearing Screening program.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
• Receives Salary,Other financial benefit for Employment,Consulting from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Tennessee Department of Health.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Financial relationship with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Tennessee Department of Health.
Nature: Brittany Day receives a salary from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in part funded through a grant from Tennessee Department of Health.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Holli Allen
(Co-Presenter), Department of Health, Holli.N.Allen@tn.gov;
Holli Allen, B.A. is the Program Director for the Tennessee Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program. Her professional experience includes care coordination for families with special health care needs and federal grant management. Holli holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Tennessee at Martin and a graduate certification in Health Care Management from East Tennessee State University.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Financial relationship with Department of Health.
Nature: Employment.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Hilary Fryman
(Co-Presenter), Tennessee Department of Health, hilary.fryman@tn.gov;
Hilary Fryman, RN BSN is the Education and Quality Improvement Nurse for the Pediatric Case Management and Newborn Screening Follow-up Program. She has been a Registered Nurse for 15 years and has been in with the Tennessee Department of Health for 8 years. Prior to her role as Nurse Educator, she was a Nurse Case Manager for the Tennessee Newborn Screening Follow-up Program and Tennessee Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. In her current role, she works closely with the Director of Pediatric Case Management, Director of Tennessee Newborn Hearing Screening Program, Director of Tennessee Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program to create and update processes and procedures for daily nurse case management task rotations. She also works closely with the Quality Assurance Coordinator monitoring trends for birthing facilities and midwives. Hilary provides ongoing hospital educational visits to hospitals that are needs of technical assistance in meeting state benchmarks for hearing and pulse oximetry screening, unsatisfactory specimen collection rate, collection of initial specimens and specimen transit times. Hilary has played a key role in several implementations for the newborn screening program such as, implementation of OZ Nani in birthing facilities, Remote Diagnostics Entry Portal for Audiologists, facilitating a process for pediatricians and midwives to utilize Fed Ex billable stamps to send dried blood spot specimens to the lab to help increase transit time, and new disorder implementations for SCID, XALD, Pompe, MPS-1, Fabry, Krabbe, Gaucher, SMA, and MPS-II. Hilary assists with creation of program literature for hospitals, pediatricians, midwives, OB-Gyns, and audiologists. Hilary helps bring awareness to newborn screening by organizing events for Rare Disease Day and CCHD Awareness in February, Speech and Hearing in May, and Newborn Screening Awareness Month in September. Hilary serves as the Co-Chair for the APHL National Continuous Quality Improvement Sub-Committee.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exists.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
Charles Lechner
(Co-Presenter), Tennessee Department of Health, charles.r.lechner@tn.gov;
Charles Lechner joined the Newborn Screening Follow-up Program within the TN Department of Health in February 2023 as an epidemiologist. Prior to this, he was an Association of Public Health Laboratories Data Analytics Fellow stationed within the TN Newborn Screening
Laboratory. His background is in bioinformatics and he is passionate about using technology and data to better the lives of others, especially within the fields of neonatology and pediatrics.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.
AAA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Financial relationship with TN Department of Health, Follow-up Program.
Nature: Financial relationship in the form of salary/income.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exists.