Back to Search
In the past year, despite the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, CHEO Audiology has reduced the wait time for elective hearing assessments from 300 days to just over 50 days.
“Making sure families have timely access to CHEO Audiology is always a priority,” said Chantal Lessard, Coordinator, Audiology. “I am so proud that through a global pandemic, we were able safely cut the wait time for hearing assessments and provide stress-free care to children and youth with autism spectrum disorder.”
Back in March 2020, COVID-19 forced Ontario health-care institutions to temporarily suspend all non-urgent care. In those early weeks of the pandemic, CHEO Audiology continued to see urgent cases like newborns who may have cytomegalovirus (CMV) which has the potential to cause permanent hearing loss if not treated early. But these urgent cases are only a very small proportion of patients seen in CHEO Audiology.
As hearing assessments cannot be done virtually, staff and in Audiology could not work their usual roles during the temporary suspension. They were quickly redeployed to assist in other departments throughout CHEO — taking over roles with Child Life usually filled by volunteers and acting as entrance screeners for staff, patients and caregivers.
By the time the temporary suspension of elective hearing assessments ended in early July, and staff were able to return to their usual jobs, CHEO Audiology had accumulated almost 1,100 new referrals and close to 1,000 children and youth who were overdue for a follow up. They were facing a daunting backlog.
Knowing that the suspension of non-urgent services would be temporary, CHEO Audiology staff spent the downtime planning for reopening. They reviewed all their patients to prioritize those who needed to be seen sooner than others. And, putting everyone’s safety first, they carefully revised the use of sound booths.
Even though all patients, caregivers and staff are screened prior to entering the hospital, there is still the small possibility of someone with COVID-19 entering CHEO — for instance, a person who has no symptoms or high-risk exposures but still, unknown to them, has contacted the virus. To ensure there is no possibility of the COVID-19 virus remaining in a sound booth from one patient to the next, booth doors are closed and left empty between patients for one complete ventilation cycle, approximately 10 minutes. This exchanges all the air in the booth, ensuring safety.
Shortly after reopening in July, with new safety measures in place, Audiology was back to seeing almost as many patients per day as previously — one patient every 30 minutes, as opposed to one per 20 minutes prior to the pandemic.
As slightly fewer patients could be accommodated from Monday to Friday, fewer staff were required onsite each day. By reconfiguring schedules, CHEO audiologists and communicative disorders assistants were able to spread their hours over six days, instead of five, and begin opening on Saturdays. With this final change, despite the pandemic restrictions, by September 2020, CHEO Audiology was seeing as many patients as they were before the pandemic. Plus, there was another huge, unforeseen benefit that matters to families.
Children and youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often anxious in busy, crowded environments. Families report that Saturday appointment are ideal for their kids with ASD — there’s no lineup at the CHEO main entrance, no busy hallways, the waiting room is empty, and for families with two working parents, one can stay home on Saturday with their other children. Audiology schedules these kids on Saturdays.
“With more kids staying home more of the time, the pandemic has made an unusual contribution,” Chantal said. “Our referral numbers have gone down slightly and we are seeing a lot fewer children with fluid in their middle ear. As a result, we are discharging many of the children who were on our follow-up list due to conductive hearing losses cause by congestion and this has been helping us find the time to work through our backlog.”