MM102 - Using Technology to Optimise our Hearing Services for Residential Care Facilities

For aged care facilities, the resident’s degree of hearing loss and its impact on daily living activities and communication are critical.

Together with our aged care partners we have codesigned solutions to identify the needs of residents and the workforce and implement fit for purpose hearing services. These services aim to aggregate information regarding hearing level, cognitive status, physical status, and motivation to prioritise services and incorporate hearing health information within the operations of the facility.

We will discuss our findings, implementation strategies and technology solutions that assist the prioritisation of hearing healthcare.

Summary:

For aged care facilities, most of the residents have significant clinical hearing loss, impacting daily living activities and communication with staff and family. The prioritisation of hearing health has increased following the 2020 publication of the Lancet Commission identifying that hearing loss is the largest modifiable risk factor for cognitive decline.

Recent Government led investigations into aged care (e.g. RCACQS) recommended equitable access to care and access to audiological services (Recommendation 36) and technology (Recommendation 37). They specifically called out the need for maintaining or improving older people’s physical and cognitive capabilities. The timely detection of hearing loss and prioritized follow-up is crucial to ensure older adults can access remediation and/or management of their loss, and that social isolation and cognitive decline are not exacerbated by reduced access to hearing services.

Importantly, hearing services are not equitably distributed with differences between metropolitan and regional, rural, and remote locations (Recommendation 54). In these situations, the ability to deliver hearing care services using scalable technology will greatly improve access through awareness of the resident’s hearing status and improve prioritisation of services.

Working with our residential care partners (e.g. Maroba Caring Communities) we identified three focus areas required for the implementation of scalable hearing care services.

First, the need for co-design together with the residential care facility to identify the needs of both the resident, and the facility staff on the impact of hearing loss of daily living, the current challenges with the way services are delivered, and the mechanism to incorporate innovative technology to aid the delivery of hearing care services.

Second, to work together with the facility to develop processes and procedures that will lead to improved outcomes. In our case, the technological combination of hearing performance, with motivation, cognitive capacity, and physical constraints (e.g. vision, hemiplegia, motoric degeneration). These aspects together provided the required information for correct prioritization of services for each resident.

Third, implementation and interoperability. Solutions must be incorporated within the resident’s care plan and operable with the standard operative procedures of the care facility. For example, care and communication recommendations following hearing assessment could be provided through a validated traffic light system implemented into dashboards and other care solutions. Prioritization and triage of services can be used to assist the care facility and in cooperation with services to test all residents as they enter the facility and then regularly, develop a prioritisation for further hearing services follow-up and to provide immediate recommendations for care staff with how to communicate effectively with the resident.

Therefore, we can address the unique needs of each resident using scalable technology and address the high stress level of the staff so they can deliver more appropriate hearing care for the elderly residents.