286 Water Street, 7th Floor 11 State House Station August, ME 04333 Anne Banger Tel: (207)287-8427 Fax: (207)287-4743 anne.banger@maine.gov Home - MNHP - CSHN | Division of Disease Prevention | MeCDC | Maine DHHS Home | Earliest Interactions HRSA-24-036 EHDI The Maternal and Child Health Program’s Newborn Hearing Program implements the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program to support early identification and timely and appropriate intervention for hearing loss. The goal of the project is to enable children and their families to obtain information regarding newborn hearing screening and evaluation; and to learn about treatment and early intervention options at the earliest opportunity to prevent and mitigate developmental delays and academic failures associated with undetected hearing loss. Since 1999, the Maine CDC Newborn Hearing Program (MNHP) has been addressing those issues, specifically to ensure that all babies are screened by one month of age; ensure that diagnostic evaluations are completed by three months of age and to ensure that babies with a confirmed hearing loss are receiving early intervention services by six months of age. Delays in screening, evaluation or early intervention services can lead to delays in academic readiness resulting in an increased cost for special education services. The annual amount of funding being applied for is $235,000. This funding will allow the MNHP to strengthen the existing EDHI program. This is the first year of funding of the five-year grant cycle. Maine has been receiving funding for this purpose in the past through MECDHH. The activities proposed will enable improvements to the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention - Information System (EHDI-IS), continued outreach and education to providers and birthing facilities, collaboration with the Pediatric Audiology Work Group, and seamless continuation of work with previous partners and fellow stakeholders such as Child Development
Services (CDS) and Maine Educational Center for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (MECDHH) to improve reporting Part C enrollment status of referred babies. These improvements aim to address barriers to care including a focus on rural and underserved communities in Maine, improvements in the data collection and analysis and ensuring there are parent to parent opportunities available.