Newborn Hearing Screens: Optimizing Outpatient Referral Scheduling

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs across the country recommend inpatient and outpatient hearing screens prior to 1 month of age. The goal of early hearing loss detection and subsequent intervention is to maximize childhood communication outcomes. Between May 2015 and April 2016, only 6% of infants referred to Texas Children’ Hospital for outpatient screens received them within the recommended timeframe ( < 1 month of age for the state of Texas). The goal of this quality improvement (QI) project was to improve the processes by …