Industry

Harvard Health Study Finds 20 Percent Of U.S. Adolescents Have Significant Hearing Loss–But Will We Do Anything About It?

Researchers at Harvard University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston have concluded that nearly one in five American adolescents suffers from the same degree of hearing loss comparable to the age-related loss normally found in adults in their ’50s and ’60s. And people immediately are pointing the finger of blame at all the usual suspects: rock concerts, cell phones, and the ubiquitous Apple iPod and other portable music players. That’s all well and good, but it begs the question of all the other environmental noise people are subjected to from birth. The sad fact is we’re living in a much noisier world than 20 or 30 years ago, and no matter how many times we tell people to turn down the iPod, there is no substitute for a far more organized response to the epidemic of environmental noise-related hearing loss than we have seen to date.

In findings published in this month’s Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers analyzed data from two major surveys done by the National Institutes of Health, one done in 2005-2006 and the other done from 1988 through 1994. They found the rate of significant hearing loss — such as inability to hear soft sounds such as whispers or high-frequency sounds such as high musical notes or high-pitched voices — had increased among adolescents aged 12-19 from 14.9 percent in the first survey to 19.5 percent in the second, a 30 percent increase.

The study’s authors were careful not to point to reasons for the hearing loss but emphasized the need for everyone to take more steps to protect their hearing, and to invest more energy in teaching adolescents about the dangers of hearing loss. “What makes hearing loss in adolescents even more concerning is previous research showing that teens underestimate the importance of hearing and the dangers of noise exposure, and don’t make protecting their hearing a priority,” said lead study author Josef Shargorodsky, a physician-investigator at the Channing Laboratory at BWH.

Shargorodsky, a clinical fellow in otology and laryngology at Harvard Medical School told the Boston Globe that the study points to the need for more awareness among educators about the possibility that hearing loss is affecting a significant number of students’ ability to hear in the classroom: “There are probably a couple of kids in every classroom in America who will have some level of hearing loss, and it’s important for teachers to be aware of that and parents and physicians, as well.’’

The researchers’ primary conclusion was one that you usually get with every government funded study — that it should lead to more government funded studies. For sure, more research needs to be done on the specific causes of the epidemic of adolescent hearing loss. And the admonitions to turn down your iPod should continue. But there are dozens of things the public can do today to address the problem. Starting with:

1. Investment in a public health campaign focused on hearing prevention. In Europe there have been far more public awareness campaigns on hearing loss prevention than in the U.S., where past investments by the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies to educate the public about preventive health concerns relating to cigarette smoking, AIDS, obesity and other issues have been very successful.
2. More screening by general practitioners–including pediatricians–in annual physical exams. A scandalously low number of physicians even asks their patients about their hearing when in fact good hearing, and hearing assistance if needed, are critical to maintaining good mental and physical health.
3. More efforts by the schools to help students hear their teachers. Screening of students for hearing loss in the first week of school, more sound field classroom systems and other assistive listening technologies, plus a new look at acoustics in the design of schools and classrooms, can all help students hear and learn much more effectively.
4. More and better hearing protection devices. This is one problem where technology definitely can and should come to the rescue. There is a huge market opportunity for hearing aid companies and other entrepreneurs to develop better ear plugs, including dynamic hearing devices that filter out dangerously loud noises while enabling the user to hear normal sounds including speech.
5. Focus on hearing protection in the workplace. Again, the European Union is ahead of the U.S. in raising awareness of the dangers of hearing loss in the workplace and, when necessary, doing something about it. The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) needs to take a closer look at the societal cost of hearing loss in the workplace and begin to hold employers accountable for simple steps to protect their workers’ hearing.

Hearing loss is entirely preventable, but it will take more than gratuitous, knee-jerk bellyaching about people tuning out on their iPods to avoid what could become one of the larger public health crises we will face in coming years.

HearUSA Banks On Exclusive AARP Contract To Put Hearing Aids In Millions Of U.S. Baby Boomers’ Ears

HearUSA may have found its key to success in retail sales of hearing aids with its exclusive contract with AARP, the 40-million member organization for Baby-Boomer Americans aged 50 and above. In its second-quarter financial report this week, HearUSA said the nationwide roll-out to AARP members that began early this year helped account for a nine percent increase in sales over the first quarter of 2010.

In the 23 years HearUSA has been selling hearing aids through company-owned retail outlets throughout the U.S., the company has struggled along with the rest of the hearing industry to effectively reach the 30-plus million Americans with hearing loss, including an estimated 10 million or more who have never tried hearing aids. Since signing a deal with AARP to provide its members with hearing-aid discounts and other services in 2009, HearUSA has aggressively marketed Siemens hearing aids to the 50-and-over set of hearing-impaired consumers through a hearing care network of nearly 2,000 independently practicing audiologists and hearing care professionals and its more than 180 company owned hearing centers throughout the U.S.

“We have seen appointments grow at an accelerating pace since we launched our AARP national advertising campaign, and AARP included the HearUSA program in its publications and web sites in the latter half of the second quarter,” said HearUSA CEO Stephen Hansbrough in a news release reporting second-quarter sales of $21.4 million. Although the revenue total is an increase over the first quarter of 2010, on a year-to-year basis it is still less than the second quarter of 2009, a decline HearUSA attributed to managed care insurance programs cutting back hearing-health benefits to their members in the past year.

HearUSA’s AARP distribution program is not an insurance plan but does provide AARP members with benefits including:

• 20% savings on a range of digital hearing aids
• 90-day money-back guarantee
• 3-year manufacturer warranty
• Free 3-year supply of hearing-aid batteries (a $100 value)
• Free directional microphones (a $150 value per hearing aid) for models that use them
• 1-year extended follow-up care program at no charge to AARP members
• Exclusive 15% discount on hearing healthcare products including hearing aid accessories, batteries and assistive listening products from HearUSA’s online store

Since scoring the exclusive AARP distribution contract in 2009, HearUSA has invested heavily in a nationwide roll-out of the program. HearUSA reported a net loss of $1.9 million in the second quarter, attributing much of it to more than a million dollars spent so far this year advertising the AARP program to drive the increase in sales through its hearing centers. “We expect this momentum to continue and believe that center revenues will grow between 9% and 15% in the second half of 2010 when compared to the first half, and our target is to grow center revenues 15% to 20% in 2011 when compared to 2010,” Hansbrough said.

It’s probably too soon to say that HearUSA and AARP have cracked the code on getting hearing aids into all the ears of the millions of Baby Boomers who need them, as market penetration rates continue to be lower than one would expect given the need. But it’s a good sign they are demonstrating that the right mix of incentives and awareness can at least start the ball rolling.

GN ReSound Expects To Increase Its Share Of The Global Hearing Aid Market After A Slow Two Years, But Industry Growth Remains Anemic

More evidence of a turnaround in worldwide sales of hearing aids came with GN ReSound’s announcement of improved financial results today, but overall growth in the industry remains anemic. GN ReSound, one of the six largest global hearing aid makers, announced flat organic growth in the second quarter of 2010 over the same period in 2009, after sales declines in the previous five quarters. And the Denmark company made an optimistic forecast for the remainder of the year, predicting that it will increase its share of the global hearing aid market in the second half of 2010.

“We expect to grow above the market in the second half of 2010,” said Lars Viksmoen, CEO of GN ReSound, pointing to the successful introductions of new high-end hearing aid families in late 2009 and the first half of 2010. “This expectation is building on the successful introduction of the Surround Sound by ReSound-featured products–ReSound Live and dot2 by ReSound in late 2009–combined with the global launch of ReSound Alera.”

In ordinary times, predicting an increase in market share when your sales are flat would be a bold claim. But like all global businesses, hearing-aid manufacturers have been hurt by the recession over the past two years and will be happy to eke out single-digit sales increases in 2010. Moreover, GN ReSound’s recent successful launch of its new flagship Alera family of hearing aids, which feature new wireless technology including streaming of TV audio signals into the hearing aids without requiring a device around the neck to relay the signal, gives the company reason to hope for faster growth than the rest of the industry the rest of this year.

GN ReSound is part of the GN Store Nord group, which also includes GN Netcom, maker of the popular Jabra Bluetooth headsets and a leading supplier of contact center and office (CC&O) headsets, a market expected to triple to nearly $2 billion in global sales by 2014. Like Sonova, which leverages its research and development in hearing aids to provide a broad line of other audio products, through GN Netcom the parent company is investing heavily in high-end hearing assistance products, above and beyond hearing aids.

New ‘Buy A Hearing Aid’ Web Site Provides Good Information On Hearing Aid Brands Along With Referrals To An Audiologist Near You

There is a new web site devoted to helping hearing-aid buyers sort through what products on the market will best meet their needs and find a reputable audiologist nearby who can help them. Buy a Hearing Aid provides detailed information about the major hearing aid brands and makes it easy to compare and contrast features and benefits. And if you provide them with your zip code and email address, they will refer you to an audiologist in your neighborhood who can fit you with a new pair of hearing aids.

Buyers need to beware of the growing number of sites on the web that purport to offer information on hearing-aid choices, but which have actually been set up just to generate search traffic and advertising revenue, without offering substantive or even helpful information. That’s why it’s nice to see an addition to the few reputable sites (such as Hearing Planet which I’ve written about before) that are staffed by professionals who know what advice consumers need and who can provide appropriate referrals to the right kind of hearing-health professionals.

The Buy a Hearing Aid site is the brainchild of Mark Brumback of Hearing Aid Express, one of the largest independently owned and operated hearing-aid sellers in the U.S. with primary locations in Houston and Dallas, Texas. (It is also among the first North American hearing-aid companies to sell the new Panasonic line of hearing aids). Hearing Aid Express fits multiple brands of hearing aids, and the company’s breadth and depth of knowledge of the various hearing-aid brands  is now presented on the Buy a Hearing Aid site for three classes of consumers: those who have never owned hearing aids, those who currently own hearing aids, and those who are interested in buying hearing aids.

Petar Dimov, a web developer and search optimization expert, built the site and is developing a comprehensive database of all hearing aid brands and models. Audiologists can pay a small annual fee to have details of their practice presented on the site including any sales offers to attract local customers.

U.S. Hearing Aid Sales Recovery Stalls In Second Quarter Of 2010 Even As Veterans Administration Fits More Hearing Aids Than Ever

Are we in for a double-dip recession in the hearing-aid business? According to the most recent analysis of U.S. hearing aid sales by the Hearing Industries Association (HIA), the number of hearing aids sold in the U.S. only grew by 2.9 percent in the second quarter of 2010. When you exclude an 11.6 percent increase in units bought by the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA), which now purchases 20 percent of the hearing aids sold in the U.S., the American market grew by an anemic one percent in the quarter. Similarly, in the entire first half of 2010, the overall market grew 4.2 percent, with VA sales growing 15 percent but private sales growing only by 1.8 percent over the first half of 2009.

The slowdown from the much faster sales ramp in 2009 is bad news for an industry hoping for a quick recovery from the 2008-2009 recession. It may also indicate that even the raft of new products and capabilities introduced by hearing aid manufacturers in the past two years may not be enough to spark the long-awaited takeoff in hearing aid sales to a generation of Baby Boom consumers steadily losing their hearing at predictable rates.

The surge in government-funded purchases by the VA can be attributed to loosened restrictions on reimbursement for veterans needing hearing aids over the past several years, as well as to the age wave of Korean War and Vietnam War veterans now requiring hearing assistance and the many younger veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with hearing damaged by overexposure to environmental noise in the war zones.

While the government-supported VA market is a welcome shot in the arm to the industry, it’s still an open question why sales to ordinary consumers have yet to take off. With up to a third of the 35 million Americans in need of hearing assistance doing without hearing aids, the question to answer is “when,” not “if.” However, the poor sales improvement in 2010 so far makes it clear the hearing aid industry has yet to crack the code to realizing the expected surge in sales to a market that needs hearing assistance more and more all the time.

Does Amplifon’s Revenue Increase Mean The Global Hearing-Aid Industry Is Ready To Rebound From Recession?

When Amplifon S.p.A., the leading global hearing-aid distribution company, yesterday announced that its revenues in the first half of 2010 increased 8.9 percent to 314.4 million Euros, it may have sounded the opening bell on a rebound for the hearing industry generally.

Amplifon, based in Italy, is the leading distributor of hearing aids in Europe, through its company-branded stores, and in the U.S., where it sells through its well-known Miracle Ear and Sonus subsidiaries. Because it distributes in most major markets and sells multiple brands of hearing aids, Amplifon is a good company to watch for indications of the relative health of the hearing solutions industry generally.

While the company’s growth is real, with 5.9 percent organic growth and the rest through acquisitions, it is not yet booming, and Amplifon CEO Franco Moscetti went out of his way in the earnings announcement to reference the “uncertain and volatile economic scenario” that all companies will have to contend with through the end of the year and beyond. And while the company also enjoyed an increase in profitability, it pointed to its ongoing cost-containment measures combined with the revenue growth.

The most gratifying news was the rebound in the European market, where Amplifon sales grew 12.6 percent, which raises the question whether Europe is enjoying a stronger than expected recovery from the deep recession. In the U.S. market, where Amplifon does considerably less business, sales were down 4.3 percent, in line with a slow-growth-to-no-growth first half that most hearing-aid sellers endured. The performance may indicate that the U.S. market will continue its snail’s pace recovery in all sectors except for the federally supported Veterans Administration channel, where sales growth of hearing aids has been in the double digits.

Amplifon is less well known in the U.S. than in Europe, where it has spent the last several years actively investing in promoting the Amplifon brand name and opening Amplifon retail outlets. But it’s a good example of a macro-trend in the hearing industry toward consolidation of the sales channel. Independently owned audiology practices are still a major channel in developed markets, but increasingly the leading manufacturers are buying up audiology practices and conglomerating them into point-of-sale chains that will compete against the largest independent distributors such as Amplifon, that are also consolidating their ownership and branding at the point of sale.

Whether this trend will result in better service and better value (i.e. lower prices) for consumers, is an open question. Volume sales through conglomeration can help drive prices down, but at the same time it can lead to less personal service in a business where success or failure is determined one ear at a time.

Panasonic Rolls Out Family Of Behind-The-Ear And Receiver-In-The-Canal Hearing Aids In North American Market

Global consumer electronics giant Panasonic is using its decades of experience selling hearing aids to its home market in Japan to deliver a complete family of hearing solutions to the North American market for the first time, with its sales roll-out starting this month. Following the company’s announcement at the American Academy of Audiology convention in April, North American sales leader Delain Wright has assembled a national team that is signing up a network of audiologists throughout the region to introduce American consumers to Panasonic’s behind-the-ear (BTE) and receiver-in-the-canal (RIC) hearing aids. The initial product lineup consists of the Panasonic 4 Series RIC hearing aids, the Panasonic 2 Series BTE hearing aids, and the innovative JZ Series hearing amplification system worn around the neck with an attachable binaural headset.

The RIC and BTE hearing aid lines each come in standard 9-channel, mid-range 12-channel and and high-end 16-channel models. Based on Panasonic’s own digital signal processing chip and sound processing software, they provide a range of options for audiologists to fit, from entry level to high end. Both lines feature an “intelligent scene selector,” which automatically adjusts the sound processing system’s program settings for up to seven different listening situations. They also feature adaptive, dual-focus directional microphones, adaptive noise suppression, feedback cancellation, and wind-noise suppression.

The JZ Series is a small personal sound amplification unit with a microphone and sound processor that hangs from a cord around the neck, and a lightweight binaural headset. It can be custom-tuned to meet the specific needs of users with moderate hearing loss. It is a step toward the goal outlined at the initial announcement by Yoshi Yuasa, Corporate Senior Vice President of Panasonic North America, “to participate in the convergence of audio products and hearing aids.” Wright says more products will be coming from Panasonic’s design labs that compete head-to-head with other premium hearing-aid brands and deliver innovations based on Panasonic’s consumer electronics experience.

Two Cheers For On Semiconductor’s Acquisition Of Hearing-Aid Chip Maker Sound Design Technologies

On Semiconductor’s recent acquisition of Sound Design Technologies reduces the number of independent manufacturers of digital signal processor (DSP) chips for hearing aids, lessening competition in an industry that is already highly concentrated. Less competition is not a good thing over the long run, because when fewer manufacturers control a market, they can charge higher prices for the products they’ve already built. They can also invest less in new technology innovations because there are fewer competitors out there likely to leapfrog them. However, over the short term, On Semiconductor’s acquisition acquisition of Sound Design may actually be a very good thing for the hearing industry. Here’s why.

Ever since Sound Design spun out of Canadian semiconductor maker Gennum several years ago, it has been the only independent DSP chip manufacturer focused on the hearing aid market. Many hearing-aid manufacturers who do not design and build their own chips use Sound Design’s chips to power their hearing aids. DSPs are specialized semiconductor products whose hearing-aid manufacturer customers expect lower costs and higher performance every year along with more miniaturization and special features. DSPs allow hearing-aid makers to provide better feedback canceling capability, automatic adjustment to different listening environments, automatic adjustment of directional microphones, wireless communication between left and right hearing aids to provide better hearing “in stereo,” Bluetooth integration, and numerous other features that have dramatically improved digital hearing aids in recent years.

Sound Design’s new Wolverine DSP is a high-performance digital engine for hearing aids that is smaller than earlier DSPs, consumes less power, delivers more processing capability and enables easier and more flexible development and deployment of custom sound-processing algorithms and special applications by hearing-aid manufacturers. Clearly the company’s focus on the hearing-aid market has paid off.

But chip design, manufacturing and distribution is a highly capital-intensive business, and Sound Design on its own was nowhere near as large as many of the semiconductor companies it would have to compete against. Without being able to achieve economies of scale from a manufacturing operation selling a lot of products, it’s hard for a chip company to keep costs as low as customers want.

Therefore being acquired should enable Sound Design to leverage On Semiconductor’s mass-production capabilities to keep costs down. It will also be able to tap On Semiconductor’s deep bench of designers with extensive experience developing power and signal management semiconductors, logic chips, discrete components and custom devices — all of which can be applied to next-generation hearing-aid DSPs. That’s a benefit to hearing-aid manufacturers, who need to continue integrating all kinds of new capabilities into ever-smaller form factors. On Semiconductor spun out of Motorola several years ago and is now a leading publicly held semiconductor company with nearly $2 billion (USD) in annual revenue, so it’s got all the resources a small manufacturer of hearing-aid DSPs should need. If it allows Sound Design’s team of executives to continue focusing as relentlessly on the hearing-aid market as they have in the past, the acquisition could be a win-win-win for On Semiconductor, Sound Design, hearing-aid manufacturers who depend on them, and hearing-aid users who will continue to benefit from new technologies and better performance at lower costs.

However, that’s a big “if.” The business landscape is littered with the carcasses of failed acquisitions where hoped-for synergy was never achieved. And in this case, competition in the target market has suffered a double-whammy, because in 2007 On Semiconductor acquired the other leading independent maker of hearing-aid DSPs, AMI Semiconductor. Combining Sound Design with AMI’s hearing-aid products leaves On Semiconductor as the only game in town for hearing-aid manufacturers who want to acquire a standard DSP rather than develop their own. That means less competition in the hearing-aid industry. Which gets us back to where we started — the fear that as one of only a few suppliers in an already-concentrated industry, On Semiconductor might slow down investments in new technology and features to improve its profit margins and, with fewer competitors breathing down its neck, limit price reductions as well.

That’s why I’m giving On Semiconductor’s aggressive move into the hearing-aid business two cheers, not three. They are big cheers, because On Semiconductor should be able to continue providing new DSP technologies that improve performance while lowering costs for hearing-aid manufacturers. But I will reserve my third cheer for the yet-to-be named competitors out there, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, who are inventing new chips that will outperform what’s on the market today and give On Semiconductor a competitive run for its money.

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