Objective: To evaluate the newborn hearing screening program in the University of Santo Tomas Hospital based on the quality indicators set by the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH) 2019 position statement. Methods: Design: Cross-sectional study Setting: Tertiary Private Training Hospital Participants: All newborns delivered in 2019 at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Hospital were considered for inclusion Results: The UST Hospital had 778 newborns in 2019, of which 687 (88.3%) completed newborn hearing screening by 1 month of age. There were 81 (10.4%) who failed initial hospitalbased screening and required outpatient re-screening while 11 (1.4%) of those who failed initial screening also failed subsequent rescreening. Forty-five (5.7%) newborns failed initial screening and subsequently passed re-screening. None of the eleven (0/11) patients completed comprehensive audiologic evaluation thus, patients necessitating referral for intervention were not identified. There were a total of 67 (8.6%) dropouts throughout the hearing evaluation process. Fifteen (15) infants were not screened due to unavailability of trained personnel at time of referral, four (4) infants were advised third screening while two (2) were advised observation instead of proceeding to confirmatory test. Conclusion The University of Santo Tomas Hospital newborn hearing screening program has yet to reach the quality indicators set by the Joint Committee on Infant Hearing 2019 for screening and confirmation of hearing loss. Among identified areas for improvement are the availability of trained personnel, insufficient means to ensure compliance, reluctance to pursue further testing and practices among healthcare providers.
otoacoustic emission ; diagnostics ; quality indicators