Inter-Agency Coordination of State and Federal Newborn Hearing Screening Programs

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) conducted a case study of inter-agency collaboration of the Early Hearing Detection & Intervention (EHDI) program to find out how other federal collaborations could replicate EHDI's successes. This case study report summarizes the historic development of the EHDI collaboration; the current administration and funding structure of state EHDI programs; the key literature related to interagency collaboration; and the results of the case study interviews and survey. The evaluation team used qualitative and quantitative methods to triangulate data from multiple sources, such as review of legislative, organizational, and programmatic documents; review of macro-level literature on organizational change and agency collaboration; analysis of organizational communication networks from an online survey; and qualitative interviews with key representatives. The online survey included 41 state EHDI coordinators and seven federal and seven non-governmental/non-profit stakeholders. Staff interviewed 34 representatives from 24 different organizations. Collaboration challenges were similar to challenges that have been identified by previous researchers: data-sharing barriers, lack of opportunities for communication, and lack of understanding of other organizations' perspectives in the cases of the Department of Education and the deaf community. The successes of NBHS and recommendations for other programs include identifying major stakeholders and champions and their role; designating sufficient time and funding to build and maintain relationships between stakeholders; establishing specific goals and objectives through consensus-building process; maintaining frequent and transparent communication between partners; recognizing expertise and contributions of all partners; ensuring adequate time and financial resources; and ensuring strong leadership from key decision makers.