2022 NHCA Annual Virtual Conference

A sound booth has been the gold standard of equipment needed to conduct hearing conservation and audiological examinations. However, the sound booth requires substantial square footage and a trained, on-site hearing health professional. Over the past decade, several companies have worked to develop novel platforms to enable hearing assessment outside of the sound booth, to improve accessibility as well as efficiency. Effective solutions must include capabilities to meet additional requirements for specialty populations and markets, including foreign and domestic militaries as well as U.S. veterans. Expanded awareness and knowledge of boothless technologies is needed to inform and accelerate adoption and application of boothless audiometry to hearing health services. However, it can be challenging to track technological advancements in boothless audiometry products. This workshop will present an overview of boothless audiometry technologies currently available to the hearing conservation professional. In the first part of the session, participants will learn about requirements for military, veteran, occupational workers, and civilians. It will also include overview presentations from participating boothless audiometry representatives. The second part of the session will include hands-on demonstrations of specific devices, allowing participants to become familiar with each system and how it can be used for hearing conservation services.