Siemens Hearing Instruments welcomes the call for the NHS to be responsive to innovative ideas and solutions from the healthcare industry as contained within the Department of Health’s ‘Better Procurement, Better Value, Better Care’ report. Additionally, Siemens believes there should be a greater focus on solutions offering long-term value for the NHS and enhanced opportunities for suppliers to demonstrate innovative ideas as early as possible in the procurement process.
Siemens Hearing Instruments is extending its support to NHS audiology departments seeking to drive productivity and efficiency gains through innovative audiology technologies.
Siemens Hearing Instruments is extending its support to NHS audiology departments seeking to drive productivity and efficiency gains through innovative audiology technologies. Its range of offerings both supplies and supports the NHS with the entire hearing patient pathway from audiology patient management systems and testing devices, to the latest in digital hearing instruments and fitting software – all designed to optimise time and deliver cost savings. Siemens believes that with greater procurement transparency, NHS Trusts and procurement hubs will have better access to such technologies and be able to expand the opportunities to maximise long-term value from every part of the supply chain.
NHS providers such as The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust have already employed innovative hearing solutions in order to drive Trust-wide efficiencies such as streamlining the fitting process, increasing capacity to see more patients, reducing appointment times and minimising the need for return patient fittings. A recent study1 into Real Ear Measurements2 (REMs) demonstrated the way specialist audiology technology solution AutoFit delivers long-term benefits when compared to manual adjustment processes. The time to gain REMs was halved from 31.6 minutes manually to 14.1 minutes via the solution from Siemens Hearing Instruments. Overall appointment times were reduced from 45.5 to 30.8 minutes and the percentage of return patient visits reduced from 20% for manual REM fittings within 3 months to 0% for fittings using AutoFit.
“Pressure has been mounting on the NHS to offer patients and GPs greater choice on the audiology services they use. Initiatives have put greater emphasis on providing a competent service that will not only deliver immediate results, but a level of service that will improve standards of care into the future,” states Trevor Andrews, Managing Director of Siemens Hearing Instruments. “We welcome this procurement report from the Department of Health to further reinforce the call for greater adoption of innovative technologies and less focus on year-on-year savings towards a goal of long term value.”
Siemens Hearing Instruments Ltd (Crawley, West Sussex) provides a comprehensive range of digital hearing instruments and software, patient management systems and audiology equipment to the National Health Service, independent retail dispensers and national chains in the UK. It is the UK operation of Siemens Audiology Solutions, a business unit of the Siemens Healthcare Sector; Siemens Audiology Solutions has been at the forefront of audiological innovation for over 130 years and is the world’s market leader in the design and manufacture of audiological products. For further information visit www.siemens.co.uk/hearing or the Siemens Expo Page on AudiologyOnline.
1Departmental audit study 2012 entitled ‘Can AutoFit REMs improve Workflow?’ by Sarah Hinchcliffe, Audiologist at Department of Hearing Services, The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust. Conducted using 20 randomly selected bilateral hearing aid fitting appointments – half of REMs were manually calculated and half automatically gained via AutoFit from Siemens Hearing Instruments. Results first published as clinical poster at British Academy of Audiology (BAA) Conference, 12 - 13 November 2012, Manchester.
2Real Ear Measurements (REMs) - the process of verifying a patient’s hearing prescription against the real ear acoustics of a hearing aid to ensure an accurate fit.
