HEIDI Study

Optimising Diagnosis and Management of Hearing Loss by General Practitioners – the Hearing Loss Data Infrastructure (HEIDI) Study.

Overview:

In order to advance the knowledge base on the management of hearing loss in the GP setting and contribute towards shaping evidence-based clinical guidelines for best practice management of adults with hearing loss, a data-driven approach through the integration of multiple-sources of data and big-data oriented visual and predictive analytics is needed.

Big data analytics models can be used by policymakers to make more informed healthcare decisions, especially when tasked with making the best possible decisions for patients. Decisions from choosing the best treatments, to determining the most effective ways to utilise resources, can impact health outcomes and contributes to better public and population health. For hearing health, a centralised repository of high-quality datasets, chosen to clarify current patterns of screening and management of adult-onset hearing loss can be used to provide a comprehensive view of the hearing-impaired patients’ journey to our partners and policy makers; and an interdisciplinary perspective to hearing health within existing primary health care assessment frameworks. Our well-designed data warehouse will be used by our team for querying and analysing linked datasets. It will also support the development of hearing health policies and precision medicine interventions by highlighting the disease trajectories of hearing-impaired patients.