Tracking Children for the Newborn Hearing Screening in Northern Germany

The Newborn Hearing Screening (NHS) in Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany) covers about 23,000 newborns a year. In Germany NHS has not yet become "universal" for the state but has voluntary activities in many of its federal countries, predominately based on private sponsorship. In Schleswig-Holstein, a multidisciplinary screening program ("UNHS-SH") was started in December of 2003 involving the departments of pediatric audiology, otolaryngology, pediatrics, obstretrics, social medicine, education, medical informatics, and a quality management group supported by the Schleswig-Holstein-division of the German Medical Association. We aimed to fulfil all claims of the international consensus in regard of screening procedures, quality management, tracking, follow-up, and timing. All of the 28 birth hospitals participate in the screening. In 2005, the mean participation rate was 81.6 %, while seven hospitals reached over 90 %. Lost to follow-up was 1.5% and 16 hard hearing newborns (of the statistically expected 23) were discovered by the UNHSSH. UNHSSH shows that an internet tracking with intensive feedback to screeners and parents is a candidate to overcome the potential drawbacks of a voluntary screening.