Accurately documenting patient hearing status and communication needs in the electronic health record (EHR) can be a powerful - yet often overlooked - practice for improving healthcare for people with hearing loss.  We recently met with family physician and public health researcher Michael McKee M.D., MPH and explored the important benefits of incorporating this information into the EHR – as well as the impact that patients can have when they champion the use of the EHR to make communication needs visible throughout the continuum of care. 

Strong self-advocacy begins with intentional efforts to forge a collaboration with providers and healthcare systems around communication access.  In this blog, a seasoned hearing loss advocate addresses what our options are at the far end of the self-advocacy continuum.  What are the steps we can take when, despite our best efforts, our communication needs are not met?  

Public Health researcher Dr. Megan Morris advises that finding the right allies to secure communication access in healthcare requires patience, persistence, and planning.

In the third and final installment of our Your Voice in Healthcare series, Silvina de la Iglesia shares her work advancing communication access for patients within a major New York City health system. Her perspective highlights valuable insights for hospital administrators, providers, staff, and patients.

In the years before I began to develop best practices for self-advocacy, I would approach my medical appointments with a strategic plan that basically read: Do the best I can. In retrospect, it is troubling to consider how much essential information I may have missed.

This blog begins a three-part series that examines Toni Iacolucci’s out-patient experience and what it may tell us about the impact of advocacy.·     

In this vlog, Peggy Ellertsen shares her lived experience about a healthcare consultation that fell apart - and the lesson she learned about changing course.

In this blog, we begin to talk about the process that will allow patients to discover their power and follow a path for pro-active, strategic advocacy through Wayfinding.  Our guidance is offered with the benefit of insights we have gained about pervasive barriers that exist within healthcare systems that so often get in the way of communication access for people with hearing loss.

About 25 years ago when my hearing was almost completely gone, there was barely any mention of hearing loss in the general media.  I clearly remember the pivotal moment when an article by Jane Brody miraculously appeared in the New York Times: Personal Health; Needless Silence for the Hearing Impaired.  To finally find an acknowledgment of hearing loss, the albatross that was rapidly encompassing my life, was a tremendous relief.  I am not the only one.