Automated neonatal hearing test in a community hospital.

A program to screen the hearing of newborn infants in a community hospital was instituted over a two-year period to determine if an automated program could function compatibly with a normal newborn nursery routine and still yield data as accurate as those reported in large-scale investigations done in academic medical centers with staffs operating under research grants. We describe the establishment and institution of the program, with particular attention to the administrative steps involved. Results of the study over a ten-month period revealed three confirmed hearing losses among 151 infants tested, a 2% incidence rate. The false-positive rate was 8% and the false-negative rate less than 1%. We conclude that an automated hearing screening program can be successfully instituted in a community hospital and that expected results compare favorably with those obtained in larger institutions.