Aarno Dietz invented a remedy for a "silent epidemic" and won an innovation award

The train was pulling from Iisalmi to Kuopio, and 𝗔𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗼 𝗗𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘇 was sitting in the restaurant car.

The phone rang.

The caller was Katriina Aalto-Setälä, Chair of the Board of the Finnish Medical Foundation. She announced that Dietz had been awarded the Nordic Innovation Prize.

"I was surprised," Dietz says.

He had thought that the time was not yet ripe for his invention, TrueHear. It focuses on hearing impairments, which have been a neglected area of ​​medicine in Finland for decades.

Dietz knew this from experience.

An engineer-like doctor

Aarno Dietz was born in Savonlinna, but attended school in Germany. After high school, he applied to a German medical school and got in. However, school was not scheduled to start until the following year.

Dietz came to Finland for a gap year but stayed longer because he found a Finnish wife in Kuopio. Dietz built his life in Kuopio.

He specialised in ear, nose and throat diseases at the University of Eastern Finland.

I realised that hearing is treated in a way that definitely does not shorten the treatment queue.

– I became interested in cochlear implants. They had technology that interested me. Originally, I intended to become an engineer.

After his studies, Dietz worked as a specialist for years until he began working on his doctoral dissertation. Its thrust was on observations about practical work.

"I realised that hearing is treated in a way that definitely does not shorten the treatment queue."

An obsolete hearing test

Hearing has been tested for ages by putting a person in a soundproof booth with headphones in their ears. The headphones emit beeps to which the person reacts.

According to Dietz, the method is poor. It doesn't reflect real life.

"It's as if vision were tested by placing a person in a dark room with flashes of light, and they would report having seen them."

The potential improvement in the hearing of hearing aid patients is also not systematically monitored.

"It's the same as if a person were diagnosed with hypertension and started on medication, but their blood pressure would no longer be measured after that. This has led to hearing aids being left in people's closets because they are not perceived to be useful."

According to Dietz, hearing-related medicine suffers from a research deficit, even though hearing loss is a silent epidemic.

"80 per cent of 80-year-olds suffer from it, but only half of them receive rehabilitation. Patients do not seek treatment or, if they do, they often have to wait more than a year for a hearing aid.

Timely treatment of hearing loss is important because hearing is a key part of people's interaction, ability to function, and participation in society.

Hearing rehabilitation can also potentially prevent the risk of memory disorders. The connection between hearing and memory disorders is not yet understood, but the issue is being studied.

From dissertation to innovation

Dietz began his doctoral research in 2010. He researched new hearing tests in collaboration with a German university.

Dietz wanted to develop a test that measures hearing where it matters – in noise, group situations, and complex soundscapes.

In such environments, people with hearing loss have a hard time in real life.
The dissertation was completed in 2014. Dietz published an article in which he introduced a new type of hearing test.

Ten years of further clinical development began, and now TrueHear is ready for a large-scale pilot project in the North Savo wellbeing services county.

Here's how it works

The test taker sits in a room with a computer and speakers. They identify themself with their Kela card and answer a questionnaire about their hearing.

After that, a voice noise test begins. A series of numbers and background noise are heard from the speakers, and the test taker tries to hear what numbers the voice is listing. The noise test is precisely calibrated and provides an exceptionally good indication of a person's hearing status.

"TrueHear focuses on actual auditory performance and identifies hearing problems that occur in everyday life more sensitively than traditional tests."

If TrueHear can be scaled up for widespread use, it could shorten treatment queues without the need to increase staff.

The test allows cochlear implants and hearing aids to be adjusted more accurately than before, making them more useful.

The test saves time for both audiologists and caregivers because it is self-service. The test also prints out the referral automatically, and because the results are saved, it is easy to monitor hearing development.

According to Dietz, these types of innovations are mandatory in healthcare because the number of people being treated is increasing all the time, but money is tight.

"If TrueHear can be scaled up for widespread use, it could shorten treatment queues without the need to increase staff."

Competitive advantage from pressure

The ageing of the Finnish population and the challenging economic situation force us to find new ways to control healthcare costs.

According to Dietz, pressure can create a competitive advantage. It is imperative to invent something new, and inventions can also be an export asset. Demographic development is similar elsewhere in Europe, although slightly behind us.

"Finland could develop digital healthcare solutions that could later be exported abroad."

Universities' basic funding is being cut. However, innovations are born from long-term scientific research.

This would require investment in long-term research. TrueHear is the result of 15 years of development, and due to the regulatory jungle, it will still take time before it is widely available for clinical use.

Long-term development work just doesn't seem to be in fashion at the moment.

"Universities' basic funding is cut and instead, investment is made in project funding for a few years. However, innovations are born from long-term scientific research.

The award gives faith

When Dietz received the call on the Iisalmi train telling him that he had won the Pohjola Insurance Innovation Award, the surprise was followed by a good feeling.

The award was proof that the work had not been wasted.

"Above all, it feels like strong encouragement. The award belongs to all the patients, healthcare professionals, and developers with whom this has been built.