Professor Helen Cullington
Professorial Fellow
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Professor Helen Cullington is passionate about her work: innovative scientific research combined with changing people’s lives.
A cochlear implant is an implanted electronic device that provides hearing to adults and children with severe to profound deafness. Helen Cullington is a clinician and researcher working at the University of Southampton Auditory Implant Service. She has more than 25 years’ experience in cochlear implants, having worked on several cochlear implant programmes within the United Kingdom and the United States, including House Ear Institute in Los Angeles.
Helen’s remote care work allows people with cochlear implants to manage their care at home using the new CHOICE webapp. With CHOICE, patients can check their hearing, practise listening in background noise, practise using the phone and listening to music, upload a photo of their implant site, order spare parts, and receive advice related to their cochlear implant.
“I would be very keen to get involved in this – I live a 2 hour journey away from the centre, so being able to do some tuning/checking remotely would be of huge benefit to me”
Patient quote
There are more than 17,000 people using cochlear implants in the UK, and 800,000 worldwide - the number is rapidly growing. Currently patients have to attend their centre regularly for life. CHOICE allows patients to take care of their hearing health at home, with alerts to the patient and clinic when help is required. This offers advantages to the patient and clinic:
*more empowered and confident patients
*more accessible and equitable care – no matter where you live
*stable hearing
*more efficient, person-centred and scalable service (saving NHS money)
*more satisfied and engaged patients and clinicians
*reduced carbon footprint from much less patient travel
We are now offering CHOICE in 8 UK cochlear implant centres.
