Audiology Lab Tertiary Center

Abstract

Background: The role of audiology lab and field of audiology in India has expanded exponentially in recent years. However, little is known about the practice trends. The audits allow for changes in service quality to be charted over time both locally and nationally. Audit covers how audiology services should gather information about their service and use that information to improve things for service users. However, such information is currently lacking in India. For this reason, the current audit study is aimed at understanding current audiological practices in India with an intention of identifying areas warranting change. It is important to evaluate our practice trends to identify gaps in services to track quality of practices and possibly in the planning of future services. The current study provides some understanding about the status of current audiological practices in India. This study reports the results of a retrospective audit, which, to our knowledge, is the first of its kind to be conducted in India in the field of audiology. Aims and Objectives: An audit of audiology services at Department of Otorhinolaryngology, AIIMS, Rishikesh. for a period of 5 years (January 2015–December 2019) was conducted to – know number of various types of audiological tests done and to analyse various audiological tests in relation to time spent in minutes/hours per year on individual tests and percentage of average working audiology lab time spent on that particular tests per year to know the ratio of time spent on various audiological tests. Materials and Methods: An observational, retrospective study was conducted as audit of audiology services at Department of Otorhinolaryngology, AIIMS, Rishikesh. for a period of 5 years (January 2015–December 2019). Results: A total of 41,299 audiological investigations were performed during the period of study, i.e., 5 years and it was observed that the most common investigation performed was PTA (20,361; 49.38%), followed by immittance audiometry (10,900; 26.39%), OAE (4306; 10.44%), speech audiometry (2824; 6.84%), special tests (tone decay, SISI, etc.) (1693; 5.0%), and ABR/ASSR (1145; 2.77%). The most commonly performed audiological test was PTA (49.38%), and an average time spent on PTA (at 20 min per test) was 81,440 min/1357.33 h, i.e., 73.44% of total working time of audiology lab per year. (1,10,880 min/1848 h) followed by Immittance audiometry (26.39%), and an average time spent on immittance audiometry (at 10 min per test) was 21,800 min/363.33 h, i.e., 19.66% of total working time of audiology lab per year. (110,880 min/1848 h). Conclusion: The current study provides useful information about the diversity in current audiological practices in India. This study identifies the need for improving clinical practice, as inconsistencies were observed even in performing basic procedures such as PTA. This could greatly improve audiological practice and, thereby, patient outcomes. As per advances in audiology, this study can contribute in planning Telepractice in Audiology: Future Prospects and Challenges.