Jason Szolomayer, the founder of the nonprofit 3DP4ME, has announced a major five-year plan: He intends to provide hearing aids to thousands of people in underserved communities in the Middle East. These devices will be custom-made for each patient – through a combination of professional scanning and 3D printing. But in some ways, technology is the easy part; the challenges that nonprofits still need to address are more in terms of design, workforce, training, and funding. Overcoming these issues will not only allow continued production of custom assistive devices but also improve overall healthcare in the region, with a focus on Jordan and Syria.
How to treat more hearing-impaired patients more effectively is an important question, Szolomayer said, because 3DP4ME is setting out to do more than just produce hearing aids in the Middle East, but to help otologists in the region treat more patients. Ultimately, it's not just about making these devices, but about getting hearing aids to more people who need them by implementing a more digital and automated workflow.
Children's custom hearing aids
There are two basic models of hearing aids. Dome-style hearing aids sit in the ear canal and are not necessarily visible from the outside. These hearing aids are usually standardized and used primarily by adults. Then there are the hearing aids most commonly used by children: These have an outer part that fits behind the ear, and a custom "ear mold" (similar to some styles of earplugs) that fits snugly into the ear canal. Custom pieces are fabricated for each patient in acrylic or silicone as part of 3DP4ME's 3D-printed hearing aids, alleviating the challenges and steps involved in producing them manually.
3DP4ME also has a dedicated scanner for capturing the anatomy of the ear. Made by Lantos Technologies, the scanning instrument inflates like a balloon inside the patient's ear, capturing tens of thousands of data points in seconds. These data points can be converted into a 3D printable design of the desired earmold. (The device isn't ready for children, though—the best course of action for them is to take a physical ear mold impression and scan it to create an STL file.)
Together, 3D scanning and 3D printing eliminate the time required to make patient models and form and fit custom earmoulds using traditional methods. And, while 3D printers don't move, scanners are fully mobile—providing a way to provide care to patients no matter where they are.
next challenge
Szolomayer said: “Technology transfer of CAD was one of the challenges we faced. Designers needed to be trained on how to use ear scans and ensure that the final ear mold design would print correctly. While working digitally has speeded up the workflow for producing ear molds, each new scan still requires some level of manual processing and expertise. Designers can spend 10-12 minutes on each file. We are exploring AI solutions that can reduce this time to minutes for faster turnaround .”
Staffing is also a challenge at the front end of the workflow due to the overall lack of otologists in some parts of the world. While these specialists exist in Jordan, they are rare, and each sees only a few hundred patients a year. In some countries, such as Algeria, these healthcare providers simply don't exist, Szolomayer said. Potential benefits of the 3DP4ME model could include the ability to treat more patients per otologist while simultaneously speeding up access to custom-made devices.
pilot program
A pilot project launched in November is helping children with hearing loss in Jordan. Half are native Jordanians and the other half are refugee children from Palestine, Syria, and Iraq currently living in Jordanian refugee camps. The pilot project will provide 50 children aged 6-10 with subsidized hearing aids, including custom ear molds made of silicone (a softer material that is softer than acrylic and better suited to children's ears). Today, a hearing aid in Jordan costs about $1,000 (compared to an average cost of $5,500 in the US), and 3DP4ME aims to make the devices available for about $500 with funding from donors and sponsors.
Children will be pre-screened and then see an otologist for full diagnostic verification. Families will be interviewed at the 3DP4ME office to learn how each child's quality of life has been affected by the hearing loss, and the patient's ears will then be scanned. The nonprofit aims to have each child selected for the program fitted with their custom hearing aid within two weeks. Follow-up speech therapy will also be provided to each patient.