Introduction: Millions of global citizens suffering from hearing disorders have limited or no access to much needed hearing healthcare. Although tele-audiology presents a solution to alleviate this problem, existing remote hearing diagnosis systems support only pure-tone tests, leaving speech and other test procedures unsolved, due to the lack of software and hardware to enable communication required between audiologists and their remote patients. This article presents a comprehensive remote hearing test system that integrates the two most needed hearing test procedures: a pure-tone audiogram and a speech test.
Materials and methods: This enhanced system is composed of a Web application server, an embedded smart Internet-Bluetooth(®) (Bluetooth SIG, Kirkland, WA) gateway (or console device), and a Bluetooth-enabled audiometer. Several graphical user interfaces and a relational database are hosted on the application server. The console device has been designed to support the tests and auxiliary communication between the local site and the remote site.
Results: The study was conducted at an audiology laboratory. Pure-tone audiogram and speech test results from volunteers tested with this tele-audiology system are comparable with results from the traditional face-to-face approach.
Conclusions: This browser-server-based comprehensive tele-audiology offers a flexible platform to expand hearing services to traditionally underserved groups.
Keywords: audiology testing; auxiliary communication; console device; speech test; tele-audiology.