/

Vision Hearing Technician's Society

Ministry of Health's National Screening Protocols

The best-practice requirements for Vision Hearing Technicians are described in the Ministry of Health's National Vision and Hearing Screening Protocols.

Introducing the National Protocols

The National Protocols provide an outline of the screening process, but are not a training manual.

Pat Tuohy, Chief Advisor, Child and Youth Health, Ministry of Health
"It’s a screening program, which means that we’re not here to diagnose children, but we’re here to identify children who have a significant vision or hearing problem, so that we can refer them, and they can get the help they need."

This quote is from Pat Tuohy's video introduction to the national Screening Protocols. Pat Tuohy is the Chief Advisor, Child and Youth Health for the Ministry of Health.

Watch Pat Tuohy's introductory video [YouTube]

The National Vision and Hearing Screening Protocols document

This Ministry of Health' document has four main sections and several sub-sections, as follows.

Introduction

Programme summary

The programme
Cohort groups
Test environments/locations
Competencies
Test equipment
Resources
Quality requirements

Hearing screening
Overview of hearing screening
Pathway 1: Initial screening audiometry (sweep test) or re-screen
Pathway 2: Screening audiometry (hearing concerns)
Screening technique: tympanometry

Vision screening
Overview of vision screening
Screening technique: Parr letter-matching vision charts or Sheridan Gardner charts
Screening technique: Snellen eye chart
Colour vision: Ishihara pseudoisochromatic plate

The Screening Protocols document is available to download from the Ministry of Health's website.

National Vision and Hearing Screening Protocols [Ministry of Health]