Title from PDF of title page. / Professional research project (Au.D.)--University of South Florida, 2000. / Document formatted into pages; contains 19 p. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Eligibility reform in the VA and the resulting increased caseloads have brought about unacceptable wait times for new audiology appointments. Mandates to decrease wait times without increased resources have brought new demands on audiology clinics. One proposed solution is the addition of audiology technicians to VA audiology clinic practice. The first purpose of this study was to survey the attitudes of VA audiologists and service chiefs regarding the use of technicians. The second purpose was to ask the survey respondents to assign as generally appropriate or inappropriate, job duties which might be accomplished by an audiology technician. Following a pre-survey to pilot the questionnaire, the final survey was e-mailed to all members of a national e-mail group. Ninety-three acceptable responses were analyzed. The survey responses indicate that a large majority of the respondents hold positive attitudes concerning the use of technicians, believe technicians can accomplish some duties now done by audiologists and believe technicians can help reduce current appointment backlogs. The respondents assigned a number of clerical, assistive, minor hearing aid repair and other duties as appropriate for technicians and many testing, evaluation, programming, and perceived professional duties as inappropriate for technicians. There were several items which were not clearly assigned as either appropriate or inappropriate technician duties. Open-ended responses indicated that strong feelings, both positive and negative, exist within the audiology and service chief community. The survey results will be used to develop an audiology technician job description and to identify specific training needs for establishing audiology technician positions throughout the VA healthcare system. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Professional research project (Au.D.)--University of South Florida, 2002. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 35 pages. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The employment of audiology assistants to relieve masters and doctoral level audiologists of routine tasks is a timely and controversial topic in our field. Berardino (2000) examined the roles of audiology assistants within Veteran's Administration (VA) Hospitals using an e-mail survey that was sent out to VA audiologists. The results of that survey suggested that the majority of VA audiologists were in favor of the participation of audiology assistants in the clinic to varying degrees. / The purpose of this survey was to determine the current attitudes of audiologists and otolaryngologists toward the role of audiology assistants in the hearing health care profession. The attitudes and opinions of otolaryngologists were of particular interest because this population had not been included in earlier surveys despite the fact that they often employ both audiologists and audiology assistants. The survey was e-mailed to a randomly selected group of audiologists and otolaryngologists. In addition to general opinion and demographic questions, participants were asked to rate specific audiology tasks on a six-point scale ranging from very appropriate to very inappropriate. / Results indicate that audiologists and otolaryngologists generally agree on which tasks are appropriate for audiology assistants; however, audiologists feel audiology assistants may be a threat to the profession of audiology whereas otolaryngologists do not. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.