Hearing Economics

by Harvey Abrams, PhD. “Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD. I participated in two events this week. One informed the other. The first event was the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Workshop held in Washington DC on April 18th. The other was the March for Science  which, in my current geographical location, took place in St.

In 2016, IBM inventors were awarded more than 22 patents/day. That includes one last June in its “cognitive healthcare patent” group for a Smart Hearing Aid (USPTO #9374649). It looks a lot like the Smart Hearing Aid patents IBM was awarded (USPTO #9609441 & #9609442) in the March 2017 list below (see feature image above).  Same name, same inventors, same diagrams,

Costco has enthusiastically embraced hearing aids as store-in-store revenue builders in all of its burgeoning warehouse locations since the mid-90s. The rate of Costco hearing aid center growth (feature image, red) has outstripped warehouse growth (blue) in recent years. Both are on fast tracks. Last Giant Standing, Building-Wise Costco’s Big Box footprint is large on the land (Fig 1). There’s

Costco growth has always been spectacular since its inception as a single warehouse in Seattle in 1983. Starting from scratch, Costco was the first company to grow sales to $3B in less than six years. By 2015, it ranked #2 in global retailing, just behind Walmart. The Big Box That Always Thinks Outside the Box Costco’s success is formulaic and time-tested. A limited

by Harvey Abrams, PhD. “Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD.   It has NOT been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone. Legislation has been introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to permit over-the-counter (OTC) hearing devices to be sold to the public without any requirement for professional involvement. Similar legislation was

by Brian Taylor “Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly column by Brian Taylor, AuD Recall the term “good audiology” is loosely defined as a combination of science and art that cannot be duplicated by a computer algorithm. The first two Signal and Noise posts of 2017 were devoted to this concept of “good audiology” and why – even in this

“Not your father’s Oldsmobile” was a 1980s ad campaign to shake the geriatric stigma attached to such cars by featuring an “Aerotech” futuristic model (Fig 1). Likewise, “Not your grandfather’s hearing aid” is a recurring theme in our industry  as technology moves to reduce stigma and introduce integrated, futuristic audio processing systems (feature image above) which use hearing aids and wireless

Charting patent trends can track technological innovation and stagnation by proxy variables such as geography (countries, metropolitan areas), industry concentration, education (proximity of universities, proportion of PhDs), income per capita, etc. One measure is growth and dominance of patent classes by an industry or company.  Of interest to the hearing aid industry is its representation in Class H04R patents. That

by Harvey Abrams, PhD. “Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD. After the manic flurry of activity during the last quarter of 2016, it seems that we’re in a bit of a lull (in the hearing aid world, at least). As a matter of fact, we haven’t even seen the reintroduction of the Warren-Grassley “Over-the-Counter Hearing

The Audiology Labor Force series showed a stationary, or possibly decreasing, audiology workforce from 2000-2015, despite a median nominal wage increase of $2100/year over the same period (see feature image).  Does this mean that our profession lacks career appeal?   Probably not, considering audiology’s consistently high ranking in “best jobs” lists compiled by US News and World Reports and Time