Private hearing health care clinics can benefit significantly by integrating Ida’s Motivation Tools (the Line, the Box, and the Circle) into their daily practice, according to David Rist, Head of Development and Training at Hidden Hearing, a private retailer of hearing instruments and services in the United Kingdom.
According to David Rist, the Motivation Tools can assist both new and experienced dispensers to open meaningful, constructive conversations with their clients. Such conversations can help clients explore personal barriers to taking action and obtaining hearing instruments. In this way, dispensers can actively engage clients and coach them through their change process while demonstrating respect and empathy.
“Integrating the Ida Motivational Tools into our procedures will be good for our business. The tools provide a structured model that can help our dispensers start a meaningful dialogue with the client and begin to understand their needs and interests,” states David Rist. “Dispensers like planned approaches and planned consultations. The tools provide a framework that can instill the dispenser with more confidence when engaging in intangible, yet important, conversations.”
Using the Ida Motivation Tools, dispensers can enable the client to carefully reflect and consider what is preventing them from taking action on their hearing loss and acquiring hearing instruments. The Ida Motivation tools can serve as a conversation starter, allowing the dispenser to focus the consultation on the client’s needs and encourage the client to openly reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of obtaining and using hearing instruments.
“When clients are thinking about getting a hearing aid, dispensers often sense some hesitation about moving forward. An experienced dispenser usually tries to convince the patient to take action by reiterating that the patient has a hearing loss based on the audiogram and that it would be logical to get a hearing aid,” states David Rist. “Once the dispenser has completed the audiogram, and it shows a hearing loss, the dispenser expects that the client will move forward with hearing instruments. However, this is not always the case. The Box, for example, could be of great value to our dispensers in this case. The Box can help the dispenser have the client slowly come to realize the advantages of taking action on their hearing loss and acquiring hearing instruments.”
After attending the Ida Institute’s Train the Trainer workshop this spring, David Rist added the Ida Motivational Tools to Hidden Hearing’s training program. Now, all student dispensers will receive training on the Ida Motivation Tools during their first weeks in the profession.
This August, Hidden Hearing expanded training on the Ida Motivation Tools to include experienced dispensers. Practicing dispensers at Hidden Hearing found the Box to be quite useful in the context of upgrading a client’s instrument. Using the Box during training, dispensers were eager to explore the client’s perceived “downsides” and “benefits” with staying with a current instrument compared to the “downsides” and “benefits” of new technology. Practicing dispensers also found the Circle to be valuable in understanding tipping points, triggers for action, and the client’s route to success or relapse.
Currently the Head of Development and Training, David Rist has been with Hidden Hearing UK for over 9 years. Hidden Hearing has over 80 full time hearing centers and holds clinics in over 100 other locations throughout the UK.