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In 2001, the NFD decided that advocating for a national programme to screen newborns’ hearing would be our top priority. To that end, we support ‘Project HIEDI’. HIEDI stands for Hearing Impairment - Early Detection and Intervention.
Project HIEDI is an independent advocacy group, established in 2001 to see the introduction of a newborn hearing screening and early intervention programme in New Zealand. These programmes are common in other countries, as they allow children born with hearing impairments to be:
Reaching these babies early means they have a much greater chance of reaching their full potential.
During the initial advocacy phase, the Project HIEDI Steering Team produced two key documents. These outlined the evidence for establishing a universal hearing screening and early intervention programme for newborns in New Zealand.
The evidence-based case is primarily an academic document written to influence decision makers. A summary booklet was also produced for much wider distribution. Both these documents can be accessed at the links below:
| HIEDI_Evidence_Based_Case | |
 | Click here to download the document. Last updated on: 7 Sep 2009 || File size: 1665 Kb - Approx 237.21 secs to download at 56k. Acrobat Reader required - download here. |
| HIEDI_Summary_Booklet | |
| | Click here to download the document. Last updated on: 7 Sep 2009 || File size: 92 Kb - Approx 13.11 secs to download at 56k. Acrobat Reader required - download here. |
Project HIEDI team members participated in the National Newborn Screening Advisory Group in 2005. This group was charged with
Read the report of this group on the Ministry of Health website.
In May 2006, we all celebrated success when the government announced that it would fund a newborn hearing screening programme for all New Zealand children, starting in 2007.
Implementation of the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening and Early Intervention Programme (UNHSEIP) began on 1 July 2007. Initially three district health boards with existing programmes were included, and by the end of June 2010, all district health boards were screening babies for hearing loss.
The Ministry of Health (National Screening Unit) and Ministry of Education (Group Special Education) are working together to implement the national programme.
An Implementation Advisory Group was operated by the Ministry of Health from 2007-2010. This group included members from Project HIEDI.
While the Project HIEDI group is delighted that the national newborn hearing screening and early identification programme has been implemented in New Zealand, our Project HIEDI group has serious concerns regarding aspects of the programme.
Of primary importance to us is that it is nearly four years since rollout of the national programme began, but no official data on the programme's performance has been released.
Understanding key programme metrics, particularly those contained within the official Monitoring Framework, is vital to many aspects of the programme including workforce development, ongoing programme improvement efforts and tracking of children diagnosed to ensure they receive referrals to, and services from intervention providers such as Special Education.
Information about the programme's performance needs to include the whole pathway, from screening to diagnostic and intervention services (both audiological and educational) and this information must be available in a timely manner. We look forward to formation of the new Advisory Group as we understand a key focus of this group will be to monitor data from the programme when this becomes available.
We also believe that there needs to be a high degree of cohesion between those parts of the programme managed by Health and Education to maximise benefit to children and their families.
You can find further information about our concerns in our Project HIEDI Updates, and in our Project HIEDI Issues Papers.
If you’d like more information about Project HIEDI’s work, or to receive regular email newsletters, contact the NFD on 0800 867 446 or enquiries@nfd.org.nz. If the matter is urgent you can contact our CEO, Louise Carroll, on louise@nfd.org.nz or 027 2882 785.
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