Meaningful Outcome Measures in Audiology
A New Standard in Adult Hearing Health Care
In 2025, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a landmark report, Measuring Meaningful Outcomes for Adult Hearing Health Interventions.
This report addresses a critical gap in hearing health care—the lack of a standardized approach for measuring meaningful outcomes of hearing interventions.
At the request of federal sponsors, NASEM convened a multidisciplinary ad hoc committee. This committee’s charge was to identify a core outcome set that clinicians and researchers should use to assess the effectiveness of hearing health interventions for adults.
To identify these core outcomes, the committee
- thoroughly reviewed the current state of the evidence on outcomes research in adult hearing health,
- evaluated existing assessment methods, and
- prioritized those outcomes that matter most to adults with hearing difficulties and to clinicians.
The full report
- summarizes existing assessment methods,
- recommends key outcome domains, and
- identifies a core outcome set of specific measures that clinicians and researchers can use consistently across settings when evaluating adult hearing interventions.
What Are the Core Outcome Recommendations?
When assessing outcomes in hearing health for adults with hearing difficulties, clinicians and researchers should use the following domains and specific measures as the minimum core outcome set.
| Outcome Domain(s) | Outcome Measure(s) |
|---|---|
| Understanding speech in complex listening situations |
|
| Hearing-related psychosocial health |
|
This core outcome set represents the minimum outcome domains that a clinician or researcher should measure. When using additional measures, base it on clinical judgment and individual patient needs.
What Are Some Other Key Recommendations?
In addition to identifying the core measures, the report also makes several important recommendations for advancing outcomes in hearing health. These include
- funding additional research to expand the evidence base and
- supporting data collection in a national registry to track use and benchmark results of the core outcome set.
NOTE: This is only a subset of the recommendations that are most relevant to clinicians and researchers. Please see the full report for a complete list of the recommendations.
Why Is a Core Outcome Set Important?
Measuring what truly matters—to both patients and clinicians—is critical to evaluating the effectiveness of hearing interventions. Implementing the core outcome set will achieve the following key objectives:
- Provide a common, meaningful way to assess the impact of hearing interventions.
- Allow comparison of results across settings.
- Track progress over time.
- Build a more robust evidence base to support clinical decision making.
What Can You Do?
Want to achieve meaningful outcome measures in audiology? You can help!
Begin implementing the NASEM recommendations into your clinical practice by taking the following steps
Start using the core outcome set.
Incorporate the measures (APHAB, RHHI, and WIN test) into your clinical assessment. These tools are publicly available.
Coordinate with your team.
If you work as part of a team, share this information with your team members, and align practices with your colleagues.
Contribute to a national database.
Report your core outcome data to a national registry such as ASHA’s Audiology National Outcomes Measurement System (NOMS).
More About ASHA’s Audiology NOMS Registry
ASHA’s Audiology NOMS Registry:
- Is readily available, is open to all licensed audiologists, and includes the core outcome set.
- Illustrates the value of audiological services and supports quality improvement initiatives.
- Aggregates data that (a) enables clinicians and researchers to benchmark their outcomes against the national average and (b) allows for large-scale research analyses.
Please email noms@asha.org with any questions.
