Hearing screening in a well-infant nursery: Profile of automated ABR-Fail/OAE-pass

OBJECTIVES: The goals were to examine the prevalence of a screening outcome pattern of auditory brainstem response fail/otoacoustic emission pass (ABR-F/OAE-P) in a cohort of infants in well-infant nurseries (WINs), to profile children at risk for auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder, and to compare inpatient costs for 2 screening protocols using automated auditory brainstem response (ABR) and otoacoustic emission (OAE) screening. METHODS: A total of 10.6% (n=2167) of 20 529 infants admitted to WINs in 2006-2009 were screened for auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder risk by using an experimental protocol (automated ABR testing first, followed by OAE testing if the automated ABR test was not passed). A second WIN cohort (n=281) was screened by using the standard WIN protocol for the facility (OAE testing first, followed by automated ABR testing if the OAE test was not passed). Comparisons were made regarding preparation and testing times and personnel costs. RESULTS: The ABR-F/OAE-P outcome was found for 0.92% of infants in WINs in inpatient testing and none in outpatient rescreening. The time for test preparation was 4 times longer and that for test administration was 2.6 times longer for the experimental protocol, compared with the standard protocol. Inpatient costs for the experimental protocol included 3 times greater personnel time costs. CONCLUSIONS: Less than 1% of infants in WINs had ABR-F/OAE-P screening outcomes as inpatients and none as outpatients. These results suggest that prevalence is low for infants cared for in WINs and use of OAE testing as a screening tool in WINs is not unreasonable.