Adult bone anchored hearing aid services in the United Kingdom: building a consensus for development.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

In October 2009, a multi-disciplinary group of UK clinicians met to review issues relating to bone-anchored hearing-aid (BAHA) development. The aim was to help define a model for BAHA services and service development via a process of widespread consultation with UK BAHA professionals.

METHODS

A modified Delphi technique was used. Statements were proposed by the lead group and sent out for consultation. Those with ≥90% agreement were approved without further discussion. Statements with 50-89% agreement were discussed by the lead group to determine whether they should be included in the final document. Any statement with <50% agreement was removed without discussion. A second consultation was then made, and the process repeated. This led to a final set of consensus statements.

RESULTS

The final consensus comprises 33 statements validated by the modified Delphi process. All of these statements achieved >75% agreement, with only six statements having <90% agreement. When these statements were presented to the UK BAHA Professionals group at their annual conference there was 89% agreement from the group for the consensus statements to be accepted.

DISCUSSION

The levels of agreement for the final questionnaire show that the mandate for the consensus statements was exceptionally high. Implementation of the consensus is discussed, as are each of the key areas of the consensus, such as funding and minimum assessment standards.