< Program

Technology Update Session

Session 2A
Jabra Enhance: Optimizing Client Engagement in the Digital World
Harvey B. Abrams, PhD, Jabra Hearing

The conventional model of hearing healthcare, characterized by multiple in-office visits, has experienced significant disruption in the last decade due to the involvement of large retailers in hearing aid sales, the growth in the availability of direct-to-consumer devices to include a new FDA-classification of over-the-counter hearing aids, the increased use of teleaudiology accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer-controlled features via mobile devices, and the capability to remotely modify hearing aid parameters. One potential concern associated with these changes is its impact on the traditional client-clinician relationship. Jabra Hearing (formerly known as Lively) built a model of remote hearing care designed to maintain and optimize that relationship. This presentation will describe the details associated with the Jabra Enhance model of hearing care to include audiology "touch points'' along the client journey, the assessment of otoneurologic risk, the utilization of video consultations, the nature and management of remote requests for hearing aid adjustments, and the design and utilization of an innovative mobile app.

In a career spanning over 50 years, Harvey has served in a number of academic, clinical, research, administrative, and consulting capacities with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, academia and industry to include Chief of the Audiology and Speech Pathology Service and Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System, the Director of Research at the Army Audiology and Speech Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and the Director of Audiology Research at Starkey Hearing Technologies. He currently serves as the Head of Research Audiology at Jabra Hearing.