THE ANTONIA BRANCIA MAXON AWARD FOR EHDI EXCELLENCE
Kurt Randall
Kurt Randall, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-A, has served children who are deaf or hard of hearing in Utah since 1977 with his long career culminating as the Audiology Coordinator for the Utah EHDI program since 1998. He has played a key role in the development of the Newborn Hearing Screening Program statewide and has contributed to EHDI at a national level. His unique and tireless efforts on behalf of NBHS have been recognized in the state of Utah as well as nationally and internationally. In addition, Kurt has been an extraordinary pediatric audiologist at the Utah Department of Health’s Children's Hearing and Speech Services for the past 30 years.
Kurt developed the Utah EHDI Training Guidelines notebook that has been disseminated throughout Utah to all hospitals and birthing centers providing protocols for screeners, midwives, testing audiologists and supervising audiologists. He has written many documents including the Utah Minimal Duties for EHDI Audiologists, Utah Recommended Infant Audiological Assessment Protocol, Utah Recommended Infant Audiological Amplification Protocol, and co-wrote An Interactive Notebook for Families with a Young Child who is Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing which is given to every family with a child diagnosed with hearing loss. He also created A Guide to Pediatric Audiologists in Utah, a resource for families and medical providers.
Kurt has personally visited every NBHS site in the state traveling hundreds of miles every year. Thirteen times, he has planned the annual state EHDI Conference. He has brought pediatric audiology experts to Utah to present at EHDI conferences focusing on improving newborn hearing detection and intervention. Kurt has also presented at the national EHDI Conferences highlighting many of his NBHS projects, sharing his knowledge to help other states.
One of his many unique contributions to EHDI includes spearheading the Utah Home Birth Hearing Project for midwives and freestanding birthing centers. In recognizing the high number of homebirths in Utah and that only 11% were screened for hearing loss, Kurt reached out to that community. Kurt educated and personally trained midwives in Utah, and was able to provide 20 OAE screening units to them. Thanks to his amazing efforts, today, 83% of out of hospital births receive their NBHS! Kurt also helped create the successful Teleaudiology Pilot Program where infants in the remote parts of Utah have had ABR testing in their homes via telehealth. He formed UCOPA, the Utah Consortium of Pediatric Audiologists, to increase electronic information sharing among Utah EHDI audiologists, which is widely used today.
Kurt has received numerous recognitions for his exemplary work. He has been the honored recipient of the Outstanding Contribution Award of the Utah Speech-Language-Hearing Association, as well as, the Clinical Achievement Award of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the Community Champion for Children Award. His passion for NBHS continues in Utah and now reaches as far as Africa where he has been instrumental in establishing a NBHS program in Ghana. After his many years of dedication and contributions to EHDI, it would be fitting for him to now receive the Antonia Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence.