Rudolf Hagen
University of Wuerzburg,
Germany
Title: Establishment of a comprehensive hearing center (CHC)
Biography
Biography: Rudolf Hagen
Abstract
Severly hearing impaired people have intense problems especially when arriving in a public medical center, which must be considered with great prudence. Besides a propper arrangement of spatial arrays and organisational processes, there is a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary diagnostics, therapeutic approaches, rehabilitation offers and long term after care, which has to be included within a comprehensive center. The Wuerburg CHC was established in 2009 and gradually linked to all necessary partners including physicians, audiologists, psychologists, genetisists, radiologists as well as care attendants, medical engineers and health care professionals. Now the CHC offers the complete spectrum starting with newborn hearing screening, early hearing aid fitting and genetic counselling, including all kind of otosurgical procedures like classical middle ear surgery, cochlea and other hearing implants or acoustic neurinoma surgery and finally the necessary rehabilitation programs. Regular board meetings for difficult cases, new technological developments as well the integration of research programs enable a continuous adjustment to the rapidly developing field of hearing restoration. Patients feed back demonstrated, that the decoupling of the center from the general duty of a large university ENT clinic, succeeded in a better quality of patient care for hearing impaired people.