Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening

Contents

What is the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program?
Vision and Mission of the UNHS Program
History
Program staff

What is the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program?

The Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program (UNHS) is a statewide service coordinated by the Women's and Children's Health Network in South Australia. The Program provides free hearing screening to all new born babies to ensure early detection and implementation of intervention strategies for hearing loss.

Pamphlets about your baby's hearing screening

Download PDF Your baby's hearing screening (531kb)

Download PDF Your baby's follow-up hearing screening (388kb)

Download PDF Your baby's diagnostic assessment (1mb)

Topics about hearing and hearing loss

Hearing and hearing loss - includes
- is your baby hearing noises?
- middle ear problems
- permanent hearing loss
- how is a child's hearing tested?
- how big is a child's hearing loss?
Children with hearing loss - includes
- what is hearing loss (impairment)?
- different types of hearing loss (impairment)
- causes of hearing loss (impairment)
- treatment.
Children with hearing loss - resources
- a collection of resources available in South Australia and Australia plus general resources and books for parents and children

Customer Feedback Form

Universal Newborn Hearing Screening

Vision and Mission of the UNHS Program

To provide best practice in newborn hearing screening through a specialised statewide service, ensuring all infants with significant permanent hearing loss are identified and actively involved in family focused intervention. The Program achieves this by:

providing a sensitive and supportive service that is accessible and responsive to the needs of all families
ensuring that new born babies receive complete hearing screening by 8 weeks of age
ensuring that all infants identified receive appropriate audiological assessment by 12 weeks of age
ensuring that all infants with confirmed PCHI be actively involved in family focused intervention by 6 months of age
working with service partners to maintain and improve service delivery
providing education, training and ongoing development through expertise in the area of newborn hearing
promoting newborn hearing screening in the community
to be a leading centre of excellence in research, improving best practice in newborn hearing screening.

Values

Professional - Responsive - Accountable
Supportive - Sensitive - Respectful
Caring - Honest - Empathetic
Flexible - Committed - Compassionate

History

Background

With technologies for newborn hearing screening in regular use internationally by the mid 1990s, a lack of such programs in Australia continued to result in a delay in the detection of hearing loss until later stages of infant development.

While an infant hearing screening program was operating in Victoria from 1992, this program focused on providing detection and intervention strategies for high risk infants before the age of one year, rather than universal hearing screening services at birth.

Western Australia was the first Australian state to trial universal newborn hearing screening, gradually introducing screening services across maternity hospitals in Perth in 2000.

South Australia commenced its pilot program in August 2002 across three metropolitan hospitals and two country hospitals, establishing protocols for a statewide Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program (UNHS).

A National Newborn Hearing Screening Committee was formed in 2004 to lobby the Commonwealth Government for permanent newborn hearing screening programs to be implemented across Australia, and in the same year the South Australian Minister for Health announced that the UNHS Program would be permanently funded and implemented across the state by the end of 2005.

Funding was secured to provide:

screening equipment
training for hospital midwives and community nurses
an audiologist to travel statewide
a statewide database
ongoing support for all agencies involved.

A statewide rollout of the UNHS Program was completed in February 2006, incorporating the 33 birthing and 12 non-birthing hospitals in South Australia.

Newborn hearing screening programs facilitating early assessment and management of neonatal hearing loss are now in various stages of development and implementation across all Australian states and territories.