Next steps in developing a national newborn hearing screening data set

From June 2022 to February 2023, the AIHW was contracted by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to undertake an assessment of the feasibility of building a national data collection regarding newborn hearing screening in Australia. 

In February 2023, the AIHW submitted a report, Environmental scan and assessment of the feasibility of developing a national neonatal hearing screening data collection, to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing to provide advice on current newborn hearing screening collections and practices across states and territories, and the environment for establishing a national data collection. This report, published by the AIHW in November 2023, concluded that the development of an Australian national data collection for newborn hearing screening is feasible and would enable improved availability and data quality (AIHW 2023). This collection could allow for regular and consistent reporting, the ability to measure key performance indicators, the provision of benchmarks for service improvement and the ability to make comparisons across services, nationally and internationally. The report outlined:

• the proposed scope of a national collection: unit-record data on all babies live born in each Australian state and territory
• analysis of available national data
• recommended next steps and timeframes.

* A National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS) is a metadata set for which there is a commitment to provide data nationally on a ‘best endeavours’ basis but is not formally mandated for national collection. A National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) is a metadata set which specifies a minimum set of data elements which must be collected and reported across Australia. See Glossary for full definitions.

Note: These timeframes are estimates.