Abstract:
For well over 150 years the medical profession has taken advantage of advances in technology to improve the way they care for patients. The telegraph, radio, telephone, internet and smartphone provided new opportunities to deliver services, often to people in rural and remote areas. The use of these telecommunication and information technologies in medicine is called telemedicine or telehealth; in the field of ear and hearing health the terms tele-otology and tele-audiology are also used.
With the high and increasing prevalence of hearing loss - one of the most common global disabilities - there is a great need for changes in the way that audiological services are delivered. This is especially important in developing countries, where life-expectancy is increasing but where there are critical shortages of trained ear- and hearing-care clinicians.
There is a growing number of tools for the screening and diagnosis of hearing loss (Brennan-Jones et al. in Open Access Guide to Audiology – Telehealth for diagnosis of hearing loss; and ear disease that can be used to enhance existing services.
This chapter focuses on the management of those with hearing impairment, and how tele-audiological tools and approaches may assist to improve service delivery.