Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Apr;24(4):517-9.
doi: 10.1007/s11606-009-0911-2. Epub 2009 Jan 28.

Medical record documentation of patients' hearing loss by physicians

Christopher F Halpin  1 , Lisa I Iezzoni, Steven Rauch
Affiliations

Medical record documentation of patients' hearing loss by physicians

Christopher F Halpin et al. J Gen Intern Med. 2009 Apr.

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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'DOI', 'value': '10.1001/jama.289.12.1557', 'is_inner': False, 'url': 'https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.289.12.1557'}, {'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '12672773', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12672773/'}]}
    2. Jackler RK. A 73-year-old man with hearing loss. JAMA. 2003;289:1557–65. - PubMed
    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '14996677', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14996677/'}]}
    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
    1. {'text': '', 'ref_index': 1, 'ids': [{'type': 'DOI', 'value': '10.3928/00989134-20080201-12', 'is_inner': False, 'url': 'https://doi.org/10.3928/00989134-20080201-12'}, {'type': 'PubMed', 'value': '18286791', 'is_inner': True, 'url': 'https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18286791/'}]}
    2. Walhagen M, Pettengill E. Hearing impairment: significant but underassessed in primary care settings. J Geront Nur. 2008;34:36–42. - PubMed
    1. American National Standards Institute. S3.5 Standard methods for calculation of the Speech Intelligibility Index. New York; 1997.
    1. None
    2. Halpin C, Thornton A, Hou Z. The Articulation Index in clinical diagnosis and hearing aid fitting. Curr Sci. 1996;4:325–34.