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In this episode Blaise Delfino talks with Dr. Dave Fabry, Chief Innovation Officer at Starkey.

His Journey to Audiology

Dr. Fabry planned to be a veterinarian, however, he found his fellow students in the pre-vet curriculum to be extremely competitive. He learned of a discipline known as experimental psychology while doing the job of a chinchilla tester in college. The anatomy of the chinchilla’s ears is very similar to that of human ears. While he was a master’s student at Mayo Clinic, he worked with patients who had hearing and balance disorders. That’s when he decided to go into audiology. He wanted to help patients. He went on to get a PhD and became a researcher.

Patient Driven Focus

Dr. Fabry says inventions only become innovations when they make an impact on the market. The features most people want from hearing aids is audibility for speech and sound quality, in quiet and listening environments; reduction in background noise, using noise suppression and directional microphones; and spatial awareness. Clinicians can test patients’ spatial awareness by having the patient close his/her eyes and move around quietly and ask the patient “Where am I?” For patients with low visibility, the inability to locate sound can be life threatening.

Helping the World

Dr. Fabry is licensed in Minnesota, Florida and Rwanda. He has traveled to Rwanda to help people there by providing hearing instruments. Many people there get malaria and are treated with quinine. Quinine is ototoxic, so even many children have significant hearing loss. In addition to providing hearing aids, Starkey goes into countries and develops a community of support. Wearers have a place to go to learn how to change batteries and care for their aids. Nevertheless, in most countries, even if people have a hearing insurance benefit, only 50 percent of them wear hearing aids. There is still a stigma surrounding hearing loss.

Speech in Noise

Patients usually first notice they’re having a hearing problem when they are in noisy environments. Dr. Fabry says he advises all clinicians to do speech in noise testing. Many say they don’t have time; however, it is imperative to a proper fitting to do speech in noise testing, along with quiet testing.

Automatic classification of noise by the hearing aids is only 80 percent effective. By giving the patient the ability to choose which sounds he wants to hear via an app, it closes the gap of the remaining 20 percent. The hearing instruments scan the environment for speech and noise at the rate of 55 adjustments every hour. During the pandemic, Starkey hearing instruments helped patients hear someone who was wearing a mask.

Telehealth is Born

In the early ‘90s Mayo Clinic in Minnesota set up a secure teleconferencing system that allowed clinicians to speak to colleagues at their institutions in Florida and Arizona. During the pandemic, when audiologists were considered non-essential and were shuttered, many used telehealth to help their patients. Minor adjustments to hearing aids make up a third of patients in audiology practices. Telehealth appointments can take care of these. Patients on vacations or patients who don’t go out in bad weather can always use telehealth. Family members and caretakers can be present during a telehealth visit. During the pandemic patients with p

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