Feasibility of community health workers as teleaudiology patient-site facilitators: a multilevel training study.
Laura Coco, Rosie Piper, Nicole Marrone
PMID 33403874WHAT IT FOUND
Community health workers completed a 12-hour training to assist with remote hearing aid fittings.
All three facilitators passed hands-on skills checks. The study shows the training is feasible for this specific group, but does not prove it improves patient care.
Key findings
01Three community health workers completed a 12-hour facilitator training and passed all hands-on tasks, including placing audiometry transducers and inserting probe microphones, with some requiring a second attempt after re-instruction.
02Participants reported high computer proficiency and a strong willingness to use the training in their daily work, with eight of ten survey respondents reporting they used what they learned six months later.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study had a very small sample size, with only three individuals completing the full facilitator training. The participants were experienced CHWs from a single health center in Arizona who already had high computer proficiency, so results may not apply to other groups. The study measured the feasibility of the training itself, not the quality of care delivered to patients or clinical outcomes. Follow-up data relied on self-reported surveys with an 80% response rate.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (N.I.H.).
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret this as evidence that community health workers improve patient hearing outcomes. The study only tested whether the workers could learn the tasks. It did not measure whether patients received better care or had better hearing results.