The Ida Institute is excited to announce our collaboration with Mayo Clinic on their Mayo Clinic Connect online group for people living with hearing loss.
Mayo Clinic Connect is an online community where patients and families share experiences, exchange information, and find support from people like themselves. This week they launched a new group specifically for people with hearing loss and their communication partners. Ida and Mayo Clinic, together with the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), held a focus group of people with hearing loss and their communication partners to launch the new group. Participants of the focus group, as founding members of the Hearing Loss group, will initiate discussions relevant and meaningful to them.
“The experience of hearing loss is so diverse. Overcoming barriers of geography, people connect online with others like them, build circles of trust and dissolve isolation. says Colleen Young, Community Director of Mayo Clinic Connect
Each Mayo Clinic Connect group is managed by a team of community moderators, who keep the community safe and welcoming, and support a volunteer group of patient mentors who assist in monitoring the community, connecting new members, and maintaining active discussions. Connect is also a place to get trustworthy information from Mayo Clinic experts. Mayo Clinic providers offer insight and information, and respond to community questions through a variety of activities, such as video Q&A sessions and newsfeed posts on Connect Pages.
Whether people with hearing loss and their communication partners are looking for facts about hearing loss, advice and emotional support from mentors and community members, or to share tips and tricks around difficult communication situations, Mayo Clinic Connect members aim to share credible, trustworthy information that supports self-management and advocacy.
“Peer-to-peer support is a natural extension of person-centered care,” says Ida Managing Director Lise Lotte Bundesen. “We are proud to work with Mayo Clinic and HLAA on this online group that gives people with hearing loss a new avenue to connect with each other as well as hearing care professionals.”