Skip to main content
Log in

Medical Record Documentation of Patients’ Hearing Loss by Physicians

  • Brief Report
  • Published:
Journal of General Internal Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Anecdotal evidence suggests that hearing loss, even when sufficient to prevent full access to spoken communication, often is underreported by patients and not documented by physicians. No published studies have investigated this issue quantitatively.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the documentation of hearing loss in comprehensive physician notes in cases where the patients are known to have substantial binaural loss.

DESIGN

Electronic medical record (EMR) notes for 100 consecutive patients with substantial binaural hearing loss were reviewed retrospectively at a large academic medical center. All records reviewed were created within 2 years before the patient’s audiometry. Comprehensive physician notes containing the headings “History” and “Physical Exam” were examined for documentation of hearing loss and scored as: no mention of loss; finding of loss; or hearing reported as normal.

PARTICIPANTS

Consecutive adult patients with substantial binaural hearing loss by audiometry who also had a comprehensive medical assessment in their electronic medical record created within 2 years before audiometry.

RESULTS

Thirty-six percent of EMRs had no mention of hearing loss, 28% reported some loss, and 36% percent indicated that hearing was normal.

CONCLUSIONS

Substantial hearing loss, sufficient to prevent effective communication in the medical setting, often is underdocumented in medical records.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Jackler RK. A 73-year-old man with hearing loss. JAMA. 2003;289:1557–65.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Iezzoni L, O’Day B, Kileen M, Harker H. Communicating about health care: observations from persons who are Deaf or hard of hearing. Ann Intern Med. 2004;140:356–62.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Walhagen M, Pettengill E. Hearing impairment: significant but underassessed in primary care settings. J Geront Nur. 2008;34:36–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. American National Standards Institute. S3.5 Standard methods for calculation of the Speech Intelligibility Index. New York; 1997.

  5. Halpin C, Thornton A, Hou Z. The Articulation Index in clinical diagnosis and hearing aid fitting. Curr Sci. 1996;4:325–34.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Picheny M, Durlach N, Braida L. Speaking clearly for the hard of hearing II: acoustic characteristics of clear and conversational speech. J Sp Hrng Res. 1986;29:434–46.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the deputy editor for assistance during the review process. The article was substantially improved based on comments from three anonymous reviewers. The authors thank Christine Carter, Sc.D., for performing the blinded independent data review.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher F. Halpin Ph.D..

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Halpin, C.F., Iezzoni, L.I. & Rauch, S. Medical Record Documentation of Patients’ Hearing Loss by Physicians. J GEN INTERN MED 24, 517–519 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-0911-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-0911-2

KEY WORDS

Navigation