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The SHHH Californian - WINTER 2002 / Pages 4 & 5

HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS AND HEARING LOSS

Statistic. Six million people or one-fifth of the population of California belong to Kaiser Permanente (KP). 600,000 California KP members are hard of hearing and need information and care for hearing loss.

Here are some suggestions for Health Care Organizations:

1. A Hearing Test should be part of everyone's Medical Record.
   Everyone should have a hearing test as part of their baseline medical record.
   With the California Newborn Hearing Screening Program being in place as of 1/1/03, many infants will begin to enter the system with a hearing test in their medical records.
   Begin by giving all new members a hearing test, so they will enter the system with a hearing test in their medical records.
   Begin by asking on an intake questionnaire, "Have you ever had any trouble with your ears/hearing", and refer the positive answers to Audiology for a hearing test.

2. Healthwise Handbooks should include Hearing Loss.
   Health handbooks should mention hearing loss. The many health problems caused by hearing loss are overlooked--depression, high blood pressure, stress, anxiety, isolation, exhaustion. Health Care Organizations need to begin to look at the whole person, at quality of life issues.
   Having your infant's hearing tested should be listed under Infants, stressing how very important it is.

   In the Home Health Library: Self-Care Resources, there are 35 categories, with 3 or more books recommended for each condition, such as arthritis, anger, diabetes. There should also be a category and some books about hearing loss.

3. Building Codes Manuals should be updated to include accessibility for hard of hearing people.
   In all new and extensively remodeled buildings, wherever there is a public address system, a loop should be permanently installed. Permanent loops should be installed in some existing buildings.
   When there is a loop, all a hard of hearing person has to do to be able to hear, is click on the T-switches on their hearing aids. See www.hearingloop.org, www.centrumsound.com.
   Acoustics should be considered, following the standards of the Access Board, www.access-board.gov, and the Acoustical Society of America, http://asa.aip.org,

4. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
   All Health Education classes and educational videos should be captioned in order to be accessible to hard of hearing people.

5. Print a disclaimer in Membership Booklets.
   If the Membership Booklet says: "We cover hearing tests to determine the need for hearing correction." Then it should also say that these are not routinely given, and it is up to the member to ask for a hearing test. This is especially important for parents of infants.
   Parents and members assume, when they get a checkup, that if the doctor says they are OK, they do not need further tests. But they often do not realize that these tests do not cover hearing loss.

6. Audiology Departments should give out information.
   Give hard of hearing people information so that they can help themselves. Give to each person going through the Audiology Department, an information sheet, telling about hearing loss and support groups like SHHH. Recommend that they go to several meetings of SHHH. List addresses of hearing loss web sites--www.hearinglossca.org, www.drf.org, www.oraldeafed.org, etc.

7. Hard of hearing people, knowledgeable about hearing loss, should be hired.
   Hire some people who have been hard of hearing all their lives, and who are long term, knowledgeable members of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH). Improving accessibility and developing awareness of hearing loss will be difficult without hard of hearing persons on staff.

8. Important. Health Care Organizations need to change the way they think about hearing loss. No wonder we can't get insurance coverage for hearing aids. If the medical profession doesn't think hearing loss is a problem, why should the insurance industry take us seriously.

I have been a member of Kaiser Permanente (KP) HMO for 45 years and have always been most satisfied with their care and their philosophy--their emphasis on preventive medicine, their many classes helping members to learn to take care of themselves, their willingness to change.

KP agreed in April 2001 to revamp all its California health centers and policies to meet the needs of people with vision, hearing, cognitive, speech and mobility disabilities.

As you can see below, 2002 has been a very productive year for the Health Access Committee, thanks to Gayle Tang's (KP Director, National Linguistic & Cultural Programs) interest in SHHH and hearing loss.

KP published a Training Manual, Listening Closely, A Better Way to Communicate with the Hard of Hearing. Fred Smith, Ronda Bonati and Margaret Azcona, all representing SHHH, are acknowledged in it for their invaluable support and contributions to its development. A second edition has just been published and several SHHH members were asked to edit it.

Our Health Access Committee (Chair Margaret Azcona, Grace Tiessen, Dorothy Brookover, Barrett Johnson, Paul Stein, Mary Clark, Marilyn Finn) had two meetings with KP in May and August of this year. We met with Chair Gayle Tang and several members of the KP staff, telling our experiences with KP medical care, and educating KP about the uses of and need for assistive listening technology.

One upshot of the August 2002 meeting with KP, was that Shari Samuels, KP Program Manager of ADA Compliance, had a meeting with Peter Bengtsson of Centrum Sound to discuss installing loops and assistive listening devices/systems. Peter is a long time SHHH member, who exhibits at the SHHH conventions and is very knowledgeable about our needs.

In October, KP asked SHHH to put on a workshop at the 3-day KP 25th Annual National Diversity Conference in Pasadena. Brenda Battat, SHHH Director of Public Policy and State Development, Mary Clark, President of the SHHH Orange County Chapter, and Shari Samuels, KP Program Manager of ADA Compliance presented Say What? Listening Closely: Who are the Hard of Hearing?

HLA-CA thanks Gayle Tang and KP for Listening Closely to hard of hearing people.

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