Remote Activity Categories

Categories for remote fittings have been defined and included as a HIMSA data standard.

The NotificationAction-303-500.xsd schema file defines the element "category" as a string value. As of May 1, 2019 the list of valid, approved, and enforced categories are listed below.

As patients will begin to receive more care remotely (not in the physical presence of a HCP) there will be benefits by incorporating data collected from the field into Noah. Additionally, it will be helpful to categorize the data. The main goal of this document is to define these categories so that all companies providing the data to Noah (e.g. assumed to be hearing instrument manufacturers) will categorize data in a common way. If the categories are not applied the same then the HCP may be confused or have a harder time understanding what the data is about. More details about the level of complexity of the categories will be presented further down. First it is important to have a general understanding about some key concepts.

For the rest of the document the term DATA will be used to generically represent information that is associated with a remote fitting, patient activity (use of the instruments) and patient feedback.

DATA that is collected from the field is:

Collected from the patient by the manufacturer interfacing with the patient's App, which the manufacturer has also created
Assumed to be processed in some way by the manufacturer to provide a useful benefit to the HCP. This processing is assumed to be done using a back-end system supplied by the manufacturer.
Provided to the HCP's Noah installation by the hearing instrument manufacturer.

The DATA that is provided to Noah will be formatted in general terms as a Noah Action. This means that there will be data storage for public data (following a HIMSA defined data standard) and private data (following a data standard only understood by the creator of the data (the manufacturer).

Important Information about Categories

Categories are designed to be helpful to a HCP (not the patient) but are very neutral in nature. The categories will help HCP more quickly determine the general idea about what the data is a about, meta data.
Categories are not designed to be used for statistical analysis (e.g. satisfaction scoring).
Categories will not be used by Noah to apply workflow or business rules in an automated fashion. It seems reasonable that the a HCP may react differently when they see one category versus another but Noah will not.
Categories will have short names.
When DATA is Categorized it will also be possible and recommended to include a text description for further details. The text description will not be standardized.

Q: Would manufacturers be expected to support providing information for all of the below categories?

A: No, This is an individual company decision. However, each company is expected to make every reasonable effort to use the categories according to the definition.

Categories	Definition	Examples of text that could be included, they are not predefined choices	Notes

Categories	Definition	Examples of text that could be included, they are not predefined choices	Notes
Remote Fitting Status	Activity related to hearing instrument fitting	Sent to patient Received by patient Applied by patient Learning applied Patient has not applied settings Remote Programming changes sent, received, applied
Hearing Performance	Patient's opinion on their ability to hear well in a variety of listening situations	in quiet in noise in music in the car in echoic / reverberant environments listening to tv streaming in looped environments (telecoil)	Example, the listing in Noah would show the category of "hearing performance" with a simple text of "I am not able to hear my TV well" if the patient entered this text. Or, if the data was categorized by a system completely then it could be category of "hearing performance" with simple text of "Hearing TV Issues"
Usage Status	Information about the usage of hearing instruments	Logging data Excessive use of feature Sound Exposure Wear time Low wear time Asymmetric wear time Frequent volume changes Frequent program changes Program/environment mismatch Connection status (firmware, or missed connections)
Device Performance	Potential improvement or issue to report, hardware related issues	Uncomfortable or no longer uncomfortable Painful Too big Too small Loose Self Check failed or passed Device is broken
Message	A simple text based message	Are my hearing aid FM compatible? Does my hearing aid have bluetooth? What is my warranty? I need supplies. How do I use my tv device? "Everything is OK" New report available End of warranty approaching
Request for assistance	A request for help or appointment	Consultation Phone call Counseling/questions Tech support
Sound Quality	Patient's opinion on their perception of sound quality	too loud too soft too sharp lacking clarity too noisy other just right
Satisfaction	Indication of general satisfaction or satisfaction as it relates to a particular feature or aspect	low overall environment issue Sound Quality
Other	A category of information that does not fit into one of the defined categories