Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing

A few Words about our Collaborator and Sponsor 

 

The Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing

The Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing is a leading Polish research institute and a highly specialized hospital providing comprehensive care for persons suffering from the disorders of organs of hearing, voice, speech and balance, and sinuses. According to Polish legal regulations, it is a public institution whose activities are subject to the Act on Research Institutes and other acts on science and the Act on Medical  Activities. It represents a scientific and medical institution's highest reference level (category A+).

The Institute was established in 1996 by the Minister of Health. The Director of the Institute is Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, MD, PhD, dr. h.c. (multi).

The World Hearing Center (WHC)is the primary unit of the Institute, the hub of its research, educational and clinical activities. It is located in Kajetany, 20km from the center of Warsaw.

The World Hearing Center

The World Hearing Center in Kajetany near Warsaw is the primary unit of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing (IFPS) - a research center and, at the same time, a highly specialized hospital providing comprehensive care for people with hearing, voice, speech, breathing, balance impairments. The IFPS World Hearing Center conducts clinical, scientific, research and teaching activities and cooperates with dozens of centres worldwide. The most significant number of hearing improvement surgeries worldwide are performed here. The WHC is a modern clinical and scientific center that consists of:

  • six operating rooms equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, enabling, among other things, the transmission of surgical procedures to the whole world;
  • unique laboratories for advanced scientific research;
  • he world's first National Teleaudiology Network and two telemedicine studios enabling video connections with cooperating centers from the country and the world for telediagnosis, telerehabilitation and teleeducation;
  • a state-of-the-art Education Center with a unique laboratory for clinical research, simulation and training in oto-surgery, rhinosurgery and phonosurgery;
  • an excellently equipped Scientific Center for Biomedical Imaging adapted for functional magnetic resonance imaging;

 

The World Hearing Center performs the most significant number of hearing-improving surgeries in the world every day - more than 20,000 a year (in terms of the number of procedures, the center is ahead of the world's renowned oto-surgical centers).

World Hearing Center specialists provide up to a thousand outpatient medical services (consultations and examinations) daily. More than 200,000 patients are treated annually.

The center provides diagnosis and treatment of hearing disorders and other problems at the highest level:

- tinnitus

- voice, speech and language communication disorders

- dizziness and balance disorders

- nasal and sinus disorders (including sinus surgery using an image navigation system)

Patients of the World Hearing Center have access to state-of-the-art medical technology as the first or among the first in the world.

For more than 30 years, Prof. Henryk Skarzynski, who performed the first cochlear implant surgery on a deaf person in Poland on July 16, 1992, has systematically implemented new procedures and medical programs to treat successive groups of deaf and hard of hearing patients.

World's first National Teleaudiology Network

This innovative telemedicine solution implemented on the initiative of Prof. Henryk Skarzynski enables teleconsultations with patients and specialists from several centers simultaneously, remote rehabilitation and telefitting, i.e. remote adjustment of speech processors in patients with hearing implants, especially cochlear implants.

The network includes 27 telemedicine workstations - 2 located in the central center at the World Hearing Center, and 18 in national cooperating centers. In addition, such posts are located in: Kyiv, Odesa and Lutsk in Ukraine, Bishkek and Oshi in Kyrgyzstan, Shymkent in Kazakhstan and Dakar in Senegal. Work is underway to open more centers in Africa and South America.

The telemedicine solutions developed and implemented at IFPS have become an inspiration and model for many medical centers in Europe and around the world.

 

Medical experience

The Institute has an enormous experience in healthcare services. More than 12,000 patients are hospitalized yearly, and about 18,500 surgical procedures are performed.

Every day there are about 70 hearing-improving surgeries performed at present. In 98,7% of these surgeries are planned. Most is performed the same day the patient is admitted to the hospital. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that until today, nearly 4,500 cochlear implants have been implanted in the Institute, making it one of the global leaders in this field.

In the outpatients' clinic otolaryngologists, audiologists, phoniatricians and speech therapists, teachers of the deaf, clinical engineers and technicians provide yearly more than 200,000 consultations and examinations.

More than 1,000,000 hearing screenings performed in school-aged children in Poland

More than 200,000 patients consulted annually

More than 12,500 hearing implants implanted

Development of the Institute

One of the foundations of the development of the modern society is the unprecedented progress in the interpersonal contacts, access to and exchange of information, development of information technologies and tools.

An integral part of that progress is the level of development and exploitation of out senses of hearing, voice, speech and language communication. It gives a new importance to all research and clinical activities in this field. Progress that happened in the ten years in terms of the possibilities of diagnosing, treating and rehabilitating the disorders of hearing, voice and speech is the result of the work of many groups of specialists in numerous fields of science and medicine, such as: acoustics, biomedical engineering, computer science, pedagogy, audiology, phoniatrics, genetics, otolaryngology or rehabilitation.

 

 

 

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