Hearing Economics

“Tumultuous” captures the essence of Big 6 doings of late.  It’s also an apt descriptor  for the Exciting World of Hearing Device Patents, which really is the place to be these days.  For example, Panasonic’s battery patent (USPTO #9088050) describes a whirlwind New World of Batteries: “the batteries for supplying electric power… small-size electronic devices are required to be thinner

Downstream Consequences of Age-Related Hearing Loss is a new bi-monthly column at Hearing Economics, written by Barbara Weinstein, PhD.  As described in her introductory post,  the theme is to quantify the patient’s hearing health care experience and focus on the role of these measures in clinical practice, new developments in aging,  and their relevance to health economics.   Today, Dr.

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD. When we last left John on his journey to better hearing, he was engaged in, what is described by the Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) Model, the contemplation stage. The decision-making dynamics that take place as John contemplates taking action, are further explained in the Health Belief Model that suggests

It took less than a year for “Hearable” to replace “hearing aid” in the media.  That remarkable event happened on August 12 when Forbes headlined a “face-off” between two Hearables, which turned out to be Starkey’s Halo versus GN Resound’s LinX2 hearing aids.  As Forbes puts it: High-end digital hearing aids keep getting better and better. … For the past

HHTM editors have been spending their time uneconomically of late, weeding out problems (and learning new words) that we didn’t even know existed back in 2011 when HHTM began.  Economics is defined as the allocation of scarce resources–a familiar concept to any audiologist who runs a practice; ditto for any editor responsible for gathering original content. Productivity and bottom lines

“Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly column by Brian Taylor, AuD. Segmentation is a powerful tool to better understand what the marketplace values. Perhaps more importantly, from the perspective of the business manager, segmenting demographic data sheds light on gaps in the market that can be turned into opportunities for those with entrepreneurial spirit. We know, for example, when we

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD.  For today’s post, I’d like to combine the subjects of two previous, seemingly unrelated “Peeling the Onion” posts –the Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) Model  and MarkeTrak (MT) 9. MT9 Goes to the IOM Meeting   On June 30th I attended the Second Meeting of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee

Privacy and Security guidelines for ear-level testing and ear-level devices were discussed in a previous post which focused on who has authority over data and devices.  Authority is not the same as ownership, which is the subject of today’s post. Willingness to endorse and participate in these Big Data-driven environments will vary among stakeholder groups (manufacturers, suppliers, consumers), depending on their

Part 2 of Dr. Amlani’s Self-Efficacy post concludes with an intriguing scenario for hearing aids.  “With a new driver at the helm of this multi-billion dollar industry, the landscape is sure to change from dusty and dirty to beaches and rolling hills.”  Read on! In 2013, Amlani and colleagues{{1}}[[1]]Amlani AM, Taylor B, Levy C, Robbins, C. (2013). Utility of smartphone

Frequent guest contributor Amyn Amlani, PhD, introduces the concept of self-efficacy to our field as one means of revving up the idling hearing services and devices market. The US hearing healthcare market has yet to experience appreciable growth. Since 1980, estimates indicate that the hearing healthcare market encounters an organic growth of 0.125 million Americans with hearing difficulties annually, even