Simplifying advanced audiometry: Why Equinox Evo is your all-in-one solution

Audiometry is the foundation of hearing assessment. From early detection in children to complex diagnostic evaluation in adults, audiometry provides a consistent framework we rely on to guide clinical decisions.

The methods, type of stimuli, and patient interaction may change based on the patient population, but the goal remains the same; to get accurate and reliable data that supports effective hearing care at every stage of life.

But how do you deliver accurate hearing assessments for patients of all ages without juggling many tools? Enter the Equinox Evo, which is an all-in-one clinical audiometer designed to excel across all stages of life.

Handling diverse patients

Let’s think about the diversity of the patients for a moment. Each patient brings unique challenges and expectations.

The patient may have been referred to the clinic from newborn screening, meaning it's a child of a very young age. Some may have a referral from a visit to a general practitioner with fluid in the middle ear. It may be a (pre)schoolchild facing challenges in listening and learning in school environments. Or it may be an adult facing challenges in communicating with their colleagues and families.

With children, engagement and time efficiency are key to obtaining reliable results (if any). With adults, a sizeable and flexible test battery is necessary for precise diagnostics. And with the elderly adults, counseling and adaptability are important, be it extra needs relating to cognitive decline, reduced mobility, or other age-related symptoms.

With the Equinox Evo, we have consolidated all audiometric testing needs into one single solution, offering the most comprehensive test battery and tools to support the clinical assessment of all patients – regardless of age.

Read more: Explore the Equinox Evo’s full feature set

Turning complexity into simplicity

With the Equinox Evo, you can build sophisticated setups and/or build a package of many advanced tests specific to your needs while keeping the workflow intuitive and configurable at the same time.

How? By working more protocol-based, allowing you to have different protocols for different types of testing and patient types without setting it all up repeatedly.

One functionality we added to support the many different workflows is Free-Field+ (FF+). With FF+, you can make a setup with up to four speakers and use protocols to ensure the speakers are set up for the assessments you perform.

For instance, you could have a setup for cochlear-implant assessments with two speakers at 90- and 270-degrees azimuth (left and right to the patient), and two speakers at 0- and 180-degrees azimuth (in front of and behind the patient).

Running protocol-based will allow you to jump between the different workflows by selecting the protocol you have in the setup. So, you could have separate FF+ protocols for visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) assessments and cochlear-implant assessments and switch between the two protocols with ease using the Equinox Suite software.

This is one of the core benefits of PC-based audiometry. By building up your protocols, you can quickly switch between patient populations throughout the day, with the Equinox Evo offering all the advanced assessments you need for specific purposes.

So, with the seamless transitions between protocols, you can manage many appointment types throughout a single day, for example:

• Standard audiometry in an adult
• Occupational screening in a teenager
• Cochlear-implant assessments using FF+
• Multi-frequency audiometry for tinnitus patients
• High-frequency audiometry for ototoxic monitoring
• VRA and/or play audiometry in a young child (the Touch Keyboard is highly recommended for this)

Assessing not only the quantity of hearing but also the quality

Your patient’s hearing threshold isn’t a measure of how they’re performing in the various sound environments of activities in daily living. Therefore, you need to focus both on the quantity of hearing (hearing threshold) and the quality of hearing (hearing-in-noise ability).

Read more: The challenge of measuring hearing-in-noise ability

A test that sets the Equinox Evo apart from other clinical audiometers is its ability to perform the award-winning Audible Contrast Threshold (ACT™) test, which predicts hearing-in-noise ability using modulated noise signals. Because it doesn’t use speech material, it doesn’t matter which language the patient speaks. This allows you to measure hearing in noise ability regardless of your patient’s language ability.

Audiometry made evolutionary

To summarize, Equinox Evo brings together the needs of every patient group and clinical needs into one smart, adaptive solution. Discover the Equinox Evo to learn how it can transform your clinic and request your personalized quote today.