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Abstract
Objectives
(1) To investigate the remote check test battery, designed for self-administration by cochlear implant (CI) recipients, parents/caregivers, to determine if the results give adequate information for clinicians to decide the necessity of an appointment and to capture suggestions for improvement. (2) To gauge acceptance of remote monitoring by CI-recipients and their parents/caregivers.
Design
Prospective, multicentre, un-blinded, non-randomized, single-subject, repeated-measures evaluation. The test battery includes an implant-site photograph, impedance measurements, datalogs, questionnaires, speech perception and aided threshold tests. Clinicians reviewed test battery results, followed by a clinical appointment with each CI-recipient, and reported if the battery identified all the issues. Study sample: n = 93 CI-recipients (73 adults, 20 children) and 28 clinicians.
Results
The test battery identified 94% (615/656) of all issues. The test battery and clinician observations agreed in 99% (92/93) of cases on the need for a clinic visit. For 68% (63/93) of cases, the test battery identified all clinician observed issues. The majority (77%, 72/93) of recipients would be satisfied if clinic visits were based on their test battery results. A significantly high proportion agreed that remote monitoring was more convenient than clinic visits and could result in travel, time and cost reductions.
Conclusion
This is the first comprehensive test battery designed for CI-recipient remote monitoring.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the cochlear implant recipients and their families who participated in the study. The authors also thank Magdalena Margol-Gromada, Hannah Meakin, Nicola Hatton and Kenneth Munro for involvement in the conduct of the study. Thanks to Mridula Sharma, Josie Wyss and Anne Beiter for the review of the manuscript.
Declaration of interest
SM and KA are employees of Cochlear Ltd. HC performed paid consultancy work for Cochlear Europe from 2011 to 2017. No conflict of interests to disclose for AA, JM and SJ.
This study was sponsored by Cochlear Limited.