An international collaboration among audiologists at University of the Pacific, Stanford Ear Institute and Nanjing University’s Women and Children Healthcare Hospital in China is helping to advance infant health care across the globe.

The Best Practice in Audiology Consortium, established in 2016, was recently renewed for five years. The partnership aims to advance health care through research, education and onsite clinical training.

Research advances to clinical study

The collaboration’s ongoing research is focused on improving infant hearing screenings and is now advancing to a pilot study, which takes place at a hospital in Nanjing and in Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Audiology Center. 

The new method of testing can identify problems that may not be directly related to hearing loss. Preliminary findings from the first phase of research were published in the Journal of Perinatology.

“Hearing is not just about the ears,” said Associate Professor Gabriella Musacchia, chair of the Department of Audiology on Pacific’s San Francisco Campus. “Once the sound is encoded in the ear, it has to be processed through the brain. Our method is focusing on brain responses to complex sound.

“We've established that we can identify speech processing deficits in infants who have normal hearing. Now we'd like to make it easier for clinicians to use this in a more widespread manner.”

Pacific students have been involved throughout the research helping to analyze data and present findings at conferences.

The pilot study is expected to take two to three years and is the final step before the hearing test could be implemented in clinics and hospitals throughout the United States.

Advancing education and clinical training

Beyond the research, the Best Practice in Audiology Consortium also shares best clinical practices with clinicians in Nanjing and creates educational opportunities among all three institutions.

In July 2024, Musacchia and Associate Professor Jiong Hu traveled to Nanjing for two weeks to give seminars and workshops and provide hands-on training. They also were able to see the impact of earlier visits.

“It was fantastic,” Musacchia said. “We were able to see the effects that we had at the hospital from our 2016 to 2019 work. They have expanded their pediatric audiology division, and they have implemented the best practices that we trained them on during our previous visit.”

The new pediatric unit, which is where the pilot study for their research is taking place, allows the hospital to see triple the number of patients each year.

“It was very rewarding to see that they are now one of the leading experts of pediatric hearing assessment and management in their system in China,” Hu said.

Visits to the hospital are expected to continue yearly throughout the collaboration with Pacific students traveling on some trips to learn about audiology practices in other countries.

“We always try to bring them with us,” Hu said. “It allows them to see how different health care systems operate, even in the same profession. It’s also a good learning experience for us. We can bring back some of their ideas to our clinic practice and teaching.”

Pacific’s audiology department is also exploring the potential for a hybrid training program where Pacific audiologists would provide online training to clinicians in China, who would then complete hands-on training with Stanford.

The program’s international scope is one of the reasons first-year graduate student Melissa Wun ’27 was drawn to Pacific’s program.

“It was definitely a big factor when I was deciding on coming to Pacific,” Wun said. “It's unique compared to the other programs. It’s great that we can learn and share our knowledge and experience and see how they do things out there and how it differs from how we do things here.”