The Experience Manager tools provide a method to manually (Experience Level) or automatically (Auto Experience Manager) transition a new, inexperienced hearing aid patient from initial, spontaneously accepted gain settings to the final, desired, target gain settings. Experience Level is available for all products except Xino Classic, Zōn, and Destiny. Auto Experience Manager is only available for Honor, Pride IIC, Halo, and select Pride and Z Series products.
Experience Manager can be initiated per hearing aid and is automatically enabled in all active memories. A minimum of four audiometric thresholds (500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz) are required to enable Experience Manager. If any of these thresholds have not been entered in the Noah or PatientBase database, a message displays requesting this information. In addition, Auto Experience Manager and Self Learning cannot be enabled at the same time. If Self Learning is enabled, Auto Experience Manager cannot be enabled until Self Learning is disabled. However, Experience Level and Self Learning can be enabled at the same time.
Experience Level is active by default. The programmed Experience Level will display and can be changed by selecting the desired Experience Level button. Experience Levels 1/Inexperienced, 2/Familiar, 3/Experienced, or T/Transition can be selected. Experience Level 1/Inexperienced is designed for inexperienced users of hearing aids and provides the greatest degree of gain reduction from the prescriptive target settings in order to allow the new user to adjust to amplification. Experience Level 2/Familiar is for patients familiar with wearing hearing aids, but provides a slight gain reduction from prescriptive target settings. Experience Level 3/Experienced is for experienced hearing aid users and provides gain settings which match the prescriptive target for the selected fitting formula. Experience Level T/Transition is designed for patients transitioning to AAH hearing aids from other hearing aid technology. Movement between these levels can be manually controlled at subsequent fitting sessions.
If Apply default at Best Fit and Target Match is selected via Target Preferences, any Best Fit action will change the Experience Level to the default level selected in Preferences.
The Auto Experience Manager feature can be configured to start at Experience Level 1/Inexperienced or 2/Familiar settings and automatically transitions to Level 3/Experienced setting gradually over the programmed duration.
There are 3 states of Auto Experience Manager: Setup, In Progress, and Complete. Setup occurs when Auto Experience Manager is initialized and moves into In Progress once the hearing aid is rebooted and usage time is logged. Auto Experience Manager is Complete once the programmed duration time has elapsed and final gain settings have been attained. Adjustments made during any state except Complete will affect both the current and final gain settings.
If Show
Auto Experience Manager final settings when the feature is enabled
is selected via Target Preferences, the Auto Experience
Manager's final gain settings display on the fitting graph represented
as dotted lines rather than the fitting formula's targets. In addition,
icons display
in the upper left hand corner of most fitting graphs indicating that Auto
Experience Manager is enabled and provide a visual representation of the
progress. A tool tip referencing the state of Auto Experience Manager
displays when pointing to an icon.
If fitting binaurally and Auto Experience Manager is enabled in both hearing devices, differences in states or days remaining may occur between aids when the programmed total duration is the same. If this occurs, the Auto Experience Manager progress can be manually synced between devices based on either the right or left aid's settings.
If any Best Fit option is selected while Auto Experience Manager is enabled, a message that Auto Experience Manager will be disabled displays. Best Fit can be cancelled to prevent disabling Auto Experience Manager.
Connect and select the desired hearing aid(s) to configure via Get Started.
Click on the Read Device Settings or Load a Previous Session radio
button and then click 
.
Click QuickFit.
Click Experience Manager from the Left Navigation Menu or click Experience Level and either the Experience Manager screen or Experience Level pop-up window displays.
| Note: These options are only available if the hearing aid connected supports one of these features. If the patient is less than 18 years of age, these features are not available. Experience Level can also be selected during Auto Path. |
Inspire automatically defaults to a binaural
view if applicable.
To configure only the right or left hearing aid, click 
or 
.
| Note: If fitting CROS/BiCROS devices, only the receiver aid can be configured, therefore, the side cannot be selected. |
Click 
,
,
,
or 
from the Experience Manager screen or click on
the radio button from the
Experience Level pop-up window to use Experience Manager
at a Transitional, Inexperienced, Familiar, or Experienced level
respectively.
To enable Auto Experience Manager, see step 7.
| Note: Experience Level descriptions display in a tool tip by pointing to the Experience Level button on the Experience Manager screen or the thumbnail fitting graph on the Experience Level pop-up window. The gain settings for the level selected displays on the fitting graph and can be demonstrated live to the patient to ensure the appropriate level is started. Repeat steps 1-6 to transition the patient to the next or final level during follow-up visits. If Experience Manager was enabled via the Experience Level pop-up window, click OK to save the changes or click Cancel to discard the changes. |
Check Automatic from the Experience Manager screen to enable Auto Experience Manager and then complete steps 8-10.
| Tip: If Auto Experience Manager was enabled previously, it can be disabled if the current state is In Progress or Paused. Disabling Auto Experience Manager applies the current gain offsets to the final gain settings and automatically selects the experience level that closely resembles the current settings. To disable, uncheck Automatic and a dialog box appears asking you to confirm disabling Auto Experience Manager. Click OK to disable or click Cancel to cancel disabling Auto Experience Manager. |
| Note: To pause or reset Auto Experience Manager that is currently In Progress, continue at step 11 or 13 respectively. To resume Auto Experience Manager that is currently Paused, continue at step 12. To sync Auto Experience Manager that is currently In Progress, Paused, or Complete, continue at step 15. |
Click
or
to start Auto Experience Manager at an Inexperienced or Familiar level
respectively.
| Note: The default is 1. The gain settings for the level selected displays on the fitting graph and can be demonstrated live to the patient to ensure the appropriate level is started. |
Select the Total duration from the drop down list.
| Note:
The default is 1 month.
If Level
was selected in step 8, the total duration selected will be
split between Levels 1 and 2. However, one day of use equates
to 10 hours, therefore, the total duration is based on the
patient’s actual daily usage. |
Click
on the Inspire
Toolbar to save the current session.
| Note: Turn the hearing aid OFF then back ON after programming to start Auto Experience Manager. |
Click Pause to suspend Auto Experience Manager at its current state of progression, if desired.
| Note: The Pause button changes to Resume. During suspension, the starting experience level and total duration cannot be changed and the current state of progression is retained in subsequent fittings. |
Click Resume to continue Auto Experience Manager from the state at which it was paused.
| Note: This button is only available if the current state is Paused. |
Click Reset to reset the connected hearing aid(s) back to the default settings, if desired, and a dialog box appears asking you to confirm the reset.
| Note: Resetting returns the hearing aid(s) to the default settings, including any gain changes made during the Auto Experience Manager's elapsed time. In addition, all previous Auto Experience Manager selections are returned to their defaults. |
Click OK to reset the hearing aid(s) and restart Auto Experience Manager.
| Tip: Click Cancel to cancel the reset. |
Click Sync with Left to change the Auto Experience Manager's progress on the right hearing aid to match the left or click Sync with Right to change the Auto Experience Manager's progress on the left hearing aid to match the right, if the aids are out of sync.
| Note: These buttons are only enabled during a binaural fitting in which Auto Experience Manager is enabled in both ear sides and there are differences in states or days remaining when the total duration is the same. |
