Logan Regional honored for work in newborn hearing – Cache Valley Daily

FILE: Newborn baby hearing test. Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

LOGAN – Intermountain Logan Regional Hospital has been recognized for outstanding achievements in all aspects of newborn hearing, screening and follow-up care.

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services (UDHHS) honored the hospital with the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Director’s Award. It recognizes the hospital’s caregivers for their work to ensure newborns at the hospital receive vital hearing tests.

Statistics indicate one in 300 babies will have hearing loss, which is the most common birth defect.

Intermountain Logan Regional scored 100 percent compliance for newborns in four of five testing categories — scoring 98 percent in the other category only because the patient’s family moved and couldn’t complete follow up testing.

Caregivers are required to perform a hearing test on a newborn before they leave the hospital. If any issues are found, a follow-up appointment must be completed within seven to ten days to retest the child’s hearing.

If a baby fails, the outpatient team of caregivers must assist the family to other hospital services for further testing before the child is 21 days old.

“Until this type of testing was in place, the average age for identifying hearing loss in children was over two years,” said Steven Jensen, an audiologist at Intermountain Logan Regional Hospital.