At the 2013 AudiologyNOW! conference ReSound’s Rena Appleby, Au.D., presented reasons why digital wireless hearing aid technology should be used to bring improvements in patient satisfaction.
Patient satisfaction: 18.6% of patients return their hearing aids, of those 49% report doing so because of problems with background noise.
A MarkeTrack VIII study looked at different listening scenarios and measured patient satisfaction below:
One key to patient hearing aid satisfaction overall was how many listening situations the hearing aids work in:
Finally the study surveyed 5500 people with admitted moderate-severe hearing loss who don’t currently own hearing aids. Individuals stated they would be motivated to purchase hearing aids if the following needs were met:
- Ability to hear soft sounds (39%)
- Worked perfectly on the phone (34%)
- Ability to hear far field-theaters, public gatherings (25-30%)
In summary, the study found that audiologists have the potential to reduce hearing aid returns by addressing hearing in noise problems and can directly impact hearing aid user brand repurchase and positive word of mouth advertising by improving hearing aid satisfaction in multiple listening environments. Furthermore, audiologists can also turn non-hearing aid adopters into hearing aids users by offering a product that would make soft sounds audible and make telephone use seamless.
Digital wireless technology can help audiologists meet the above goals by:
- Reducing hearing aid returns by addressing hearing in noise problems, examples: device-to-device communication, remote mic or remote control.
- Improving hearing aid satisfaction in multiple listening environments, examples: Telephone/TV streaming, remote control, remote mic and device-to-device communication.
- Making soft sounds audible and telephone use more seamless, examples: remote mic, device-to-device communication and telephone streamer (bilateral).