Two-Way Radio Modem Data Transfer for Newborn Hearing Screening Devices

• Published in: Telemedicine journal and e-health Vol. 23; no. 1; p. 49
• Main Authors: Matulat, Peter, Lepper, Ingo, Böttcher, Peter, Parfitt, Ross, Oswald, Hans, Am Zehnhoff-Dinnesen, Antoinette, Deuster, Dirk
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Hearing Tests - instrumentation; Hearing Tests - standards; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Modems - instrumentation; Modems - standards; Reproducibility of Results; Telemedicine - instrumentation; Time Factors; radio modem; telemedicine; neonatal hearing screening; information management
• ISSN: 1556-3669
• DOI: 10.1089/tmj.2016.0009

The success of a newborn hearing screening program depends on successful tracking and follow-up to ensure that children who have had positive screening results in the first few days of life receive appropriate and timely diagnostic and intervention services. The easy availability, through a suitable infrastructure, of the data necessary for the tracking, diagnosis, and care of children concerned is a major key to enhancing the quality and efficiency of newborn hearing screening programs. Two systems for the automated two-way transmission of newborn hearing screening and configuration data, based on mobile communication technology, for the screening devices MADSEN AccuScreen and Natus Echo-Screen were developed and tested in a field study. Radio modem connections were compared with conventional analogue modem transmissions from Natus Echo-Screen devices for duration, transmission rate, number of lost connections, and frequency of use. The average session duration was significantly lower with the MADSEN AccuScreen (12 s) and Natus Echo-Screen both with radio modem (15 s) than the Natus Echo-Screen with analogue modem (108 s). The transmission rate was significantly higher (898 and 1,758 vs. 181 bytes/s) for the devices with radio modems. Both radio modem devices had significantly lower rates of broken connections after initial connection (2.1 and 0.9 vs. 5.5%). An increase in the frequency of data transmission from the clinics with mobile radio devices was found. The use of mobile communication technology in newborn hearing screening devices offers improvements in the average session duration, transmission rate, and reliability of the connection over analogue solutions. We observed a behavioral change in clinical staff using the new technology: the data exchange with the tracking center is more often used. The requirements for on-site support were reduced. These savings outweigh the small increase in costs for the Internet service provider.