What We Can Learn from the Hearing Aid Industry

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

I often hear leaders dismiss the fact that disruption in healthcare might come from outside the healthcare industry. They justify these feelings by saying that healthcare is so regulated that the bar to entry is high. They tell me that companies like Amazon or Walmart will quickly become disillusioned. These leaders fail to consider that while difficult, disruption is not impossible. Sometimes forces can emerge over time that leads to substantive change.

The hearing aid industry provides an excellent example of how this can happen. Hearing Aids have been classified as medical devices and regulated by the FDA since 1977. Strict regulation led to a market tightly controlled by Audiologists and high hearing aid costs. Consumer groups have clamored about hearing aid prices and lack of access for the past 40 years. With a rapidly aging of the population and the emergence of excellent noise-canceling headphones and ear pods, the tide shifted . The control of the hearing aid industry began to crumble in 2017 when Congress passed a federal law directing the FDA to ease the barriers to buying hearing aids. Starting in 2020, consumers will have access to over-the-counter hearing aids. Large companies like Bose, Samsung, and Apple are entering the hearing market, which could be a nine-billion-dollar business by 2023. This change in regulation is expected to be a game-changer in the provision of hearing services.

There were few in the hearing aid industry who believed that the regulations would and yet, they did. We could see similar changes in other parts of healthcare. It is not impossible to conceive that one day, consumers will own their own electronic health records from a company like Google. Health systems will have to request access to healthcare records rather than own huge amounts of population data. Look at what younger healthcare consumers are doing today with the adoption of telehealth appointments and wearable devices. Consider how ideas about brand loyalty have changed. What implications does this have for large health systems in efforts to promote population health? The signs of the future are already here on the edges of healthcare.

Wise leaders never say never. Smart and educated leaders in companies like Blockbuster and Kodak watched the forces of disruption gather but did not react until it was too late to avert disaster. Things can shift and then begin to change quickly as they did in the hearing aid industry. We all need to continually watch for inflection points.

Read Rose Sherman’s new book available now – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave