AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
Inclusive design, Newborn care to save speech, Disability prevention
COUNTRY
India
DESIGNED BY
Nitin Sisodia, Neeti Kailas • Sohum Innovation Lab, Lunar Design
WEBSITE
http://www.sohumforall.com/
Sohum: Newborn hearing screening
A novel device to screen newborns for hearing loss in resource-poor settings to prevent speech loss.
Annually, 800,000 hearing impaired babies are born globally, 100,000 are in India & 90% in developing countries. In the absence of universal screening on birth, hearing loss goes undetected till the child is about 4 years. By then they already suffer from irreversible hearing (and speech) loss. There is a lack of implementation of any existing screening solution (OAE, ABR) due to prohibitive costs, lack of skilled workers & amp; high-error rate in noisy settings. Our comprehensive solution to implement early screening in India: • Developing an affordable technology for resource poor settings- a safe device which performs in noisy settings, reduces the risk of sedation of baby, reduces test time, doesn't need disposables and is easy to sterilize & reuse • Building an aftercare cycle- a professional network of audiologist/ ENT professionals to provide aftercare • Creating awareness- A hearing milestone calendar in both mobile & print media to increase awareness to lead up to screening.