“Best practices” is a term that’s thrown around a lot these days, but what does it really mean? What are these practices and how do they benefit our patients? Patients may wonder, “Aren’t providers always doing their BEST for me?”
Defining “Best Practices”
When it comes to hearing care, the term “best practices” encompasses a set of standards that are vital for ensuring the best possible patient outcomes. Best practices in hearing care cover a spectrum of protocols aimed at diagnosing, treating, and elevating the overall patient experience.
In plain terms, best practices are the specific rules and regulations an audiologist must follow. These rules are decided upon by the broader audiology community, and they are understood to be the best steps a practice can take to get the best possible outcome for each and every patient.
Why Best Practices Are Important in Hearing Care
When you make a cake, you trust that if you follow the instructions to the letter, your cake will come out perfectly. The same goes for a medical provider taking on a patient to diagnose and treat their hearing loss. The patient hopes their provider will follow each step for testing and exhaust all options before giving them a firm diagnosis and treatment plan.
The only way to know if their provider is following all these necessary steps is to have an agreed-upon standard and hold them to it. That standard would then be listed in a guidebook of best practices.
Setting the Standard
The American Academy of Audiology and other organizations have set some best practices for audiologists to follow, and by listing their best practices as an offering, practices can establish that they follow these rules. However, these best practices are mostly medically specific, not specific to patient care and other procedural practices.
For instance, the American Academy of Audiology’s website states that “best practice for hearing aid fitting includes hearing aid verification, which confirms that the output of the device is sufficient to improve audibility, AND aided speech recognition testing, which confirms that improved audibility results in better speech understanding.”
Those are fantastic guidelines, but they don’t give much specific guidance, especially on how the patient should be treated through this process, or what kind of equipment the practice should be using.
Setting the Bar for Clinical and Patient Best Practices
An organization built by expert audiologists, called HearingLoss.com, took the standard to the next level. The folks at HearingLoss.com worked with expert audiologists and established two key areas of evaluation for certification: clinical best practices and patient best practices.
- Clinical Best Practices:
- Patient consultations, hearing examinations, and hearing aid fittings are scrutinized to ensure effectiveness.
- Real Ear Measurement and Test Box assessments are integral components to validate the accuracy of hearing aid programming.
- Annual evaluations are encouraged to monitor and address changes in the patient’s hearing health.
- Patient Best Practices:
- The patient experience, from the moment they walk in the door to ongoing communication, is optimized for satisfaction.
- Practices are expected to offer guidance, empowering patients to make informed decisions about their hearing health.
Within these categories, HearingLoss.com lays out a thorough, comprehensive list of specific policies and procedures each practice needs to make happen in order to meet the standard of “best practices.”
As you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of work to become certified as a practice that can boast all of those attributes. You may ask, how does all of this benefit patients? Well, in creating this type of certification, HearingLoss.com has surgically removed the guesswork from any hunt for a new hearing care professional.
Why Does HearingLoss.com Certification Matter?
A HearingLoss.com certification doesn’t just benefit you as the patient, it also benefits the hearing loss field as a whole. They’ve set out to further standardize the expectations for care that professionals should be providing. They also encourage practices to uphold these standards through regular evaluations and ongoing training initiatives.
Being a certified provider through HearingLoss.com offers several advantages to patients:
- Streamlined process: The directory simplifies the search for high-quality providers, highlighting certified practices.
- Peace of mind: Certification ensures adherence to standardized care, both clinically and in patient interactions.
- Field-wide impact: Certification sets a benchmark, encouraging practices to uphold standards through continuous evaluation and training.
How to Know Which Providers Meet These Qualifications
With an estimated 48 million Americans experiencing some degree of hearing loss, finding a reliable and reputable hearing care provider is the key to a successful journey to better hearing. Finding out if any particular provider follows them, REALLY follows them, is so important.
When you or a loved one are experiencing a hearing issue, the last thing you want to do is waste time researching the countless hearing care practices in your area to determine which one you can trust to know all these things.
The defining benefit of being able to quantify what best practices are is you will KNOW that if a practice offers best practices, you will be able to trust them with your hearing. But again, it’s that particular practice’s opinion that they are providing best practices. That’s not good enough.
HearingLoss.com hopes to simplify the process of finding a best-in-class provider so that patients can spend less time searching and more time getting the help that they need. They offer an online directory of all certified practices. It’s as easy as using Yelp to locate the best pizza parlor in your area.
Did you know that Allied Hearing is a HearingLoss.com-certified provider? We don’t like to brag, but yeah … we did that.
Allied Hearing’s Commitment to Best Practices
As a HearingLoss.com-certified provider, Allied Hearing adheres to audiological best practices, ensuring patients receive top-tier care. The commitment includes ongoing training, adherence to guidelines, and the incorporation of advanced technologies to enhance patient outcomes.
In the pursuit of optimal hearing health, selecting a provider who follows best practices is paramount. HearingLoss.com certification serves as a beacon, guiding patients to practices committed to excellence. Allied Hearing stands as a testament to this commitment, providing patients with the assurance of receiving exceptional care that exceeds healthcare standards.
What is considered “best” to one medical professional may mean something totally different to another. Depending upon elements such as experience, education, and geographical location, “best practices” could mean anything. This is why homogenizing what true best practice in hearing care is is so important, so that patients can expect them and medical professionals can provide them. Make sure YOU are getting the best care possible; choose a provider backed by a certification from HearingLoss.com, such as your local hearing experts at Allied Hearing.
Allied Hearing has been in business since 1985, and our patient-centered approach satisfies all your hearing needs. We’ll work with you to diagnose and find solutions for your concerns using state-of-the-art equipment and advanced technology. We’re motivated by helping people reconnect with their loved ones through better hearing. When was your last hearing exam? Reach out to us today — we’d love to be part of your journey to better hearing.