PP401 - Extended Wear Hearing Aid Self-Replacement: Clinical Insights from Big Data and Hearing Care Providers

Abstract:
Extended wear hearing aid self-replacement, cleared for clinical use in 2024, is one of the most substantial innovations in patient management since the device’s market introduction in 2007. With the opportunity to minimize the burden of repeated in-office visits and offer increased options to providers and their patients, many hearing care providers across the globe embraced this new approach to clinical care. Join us to review robust clinical outcomes available through analysis of large scale fitting software data coupled with quantitative and qualitative feedback from providers.

Summary:
Extended wear hearing aids offer the benefit of continuous 24/7 hearing, although periodic device replacement, required approximately once every 4-6 weeks, can be burdensome to Hearing Care Providers (HCPs) and their patients. In 2024, a multi-center clinical investigation supported FDA clearance of the self-replacement procedure by supporting non-inferiority of effectiveness and safety outcomes when compared with outcomes achieved with the HCP-replacement procedure. This study led to the expanded indication for use known as self-replacement, allowing eligible patients to periodically replace their own devices under the direction and care of their HCPs. As we approach the year anniversary of the launch of self-replacement in the US market, we seek to offer clinical insights and provider support by tapping into big data from the clinical fitting software, as well as an analysis of standardized feedback from providers in the field.

Extended wear hearing aid self-replacement has been on the market for nearly a year in the United States, and even longer in international markets. With the innovative nature of this fitting procedure, large scale clinical trends and outcomes are being monitored with big data available through the fitting software across global markets. With the ability to track relevant clinical outcomes, including self-replacement uptake, device wear time, and patient ear health outcomes, analysis of big data leverages existing clinical procedural work to offer insights to improve clinical care and support providers seeking to utilize self-replacement with extended wear hearing aid patients.

While big data provides a high level lens to evaluate trends, hearing care providers hold a unique perspective on the implementation and clinical nuances of the self-replacement procedure in practice. Questionnaires were distributed to collect both quantitative and qualitative feedback from HCPs surrounding their experience and insight about the past year of self-replacement in the clinical setting. Feedback from HCPs addresses the topics of device and clinical fitting outcomes, provider and patient benefit of the self-replacement procedure, as well as common challenges.

Through this poster, we aim to connect insights identified in big data and clinical feedback on extended wear hearing aid self-replacement to expand the benefits of this innovative procedure to more providers and their patients.