Adding a touch screen monitor on the patient’s side of the sound booth allows you, as the examiner, the ability to control OTOsuite software from that side as well as the control side. This is especially helpful for conditioned play audiometry and immittance testing and will help you improve patient care.

The Astera can be operated completely from keyboard shortcuts, if desired. See the attached Keyboard Shortcut guide for a complete layout of active keys. Note: Many single keys that access Channel 1 will access Channel 2 when "Shift” and the key are pushed together.

Speech testing materials that are presented from CD, like those for Auditory Processing Disorders, can be played through the computer’s CD player by using the "Int. CD” selection in the Speech Stimulus options on the left side of the software screen. Alternatively, CDs can be ripped to the computer’s hard drive and located from the "Int. File” drop-down selection.

There’s no need to zero the VU meter with a 1000 Hz calibration tone for the integrated word list. These internal word files are pre-calibrated to peak the VU meter appropriately.

Click on the "Allow stimulation” checkbox in Talk Forward to present a tone stimulus while the Talk Forward loop is open. This feature is really useful for Conditioned Play Audiometry or for difficult-to-test patients. You can tell the patient to "listen to the beep” and then present an example, all while you’re still in Talk Forward mode.

Rename selected report templates in the Report Manager so that the names are meaningful to you. Go to Tools – Report Manager, right-click on one of your Selected Reports and click on Rename. When you use several different reports for different purposes, renaming the reports will allow you to quickly choose which report template you desire for each patient.

The Astera audiometer and the OTOflex immittance device share the same user-friendly software interface - OTOsuite™. With both instruments in your clinic, you have the benefit of a single point of entry for all audiometry and immittance testing. It eliminates the need to switch back and forth between individual applications and allows combined reporting including data from both audiometry and immittance. It saves you time and improves the standard of patient care.

You are invited to attend a private, online Question & Answer session led by Kyle Kowalewski, M.S., CCC-A.
This Q&A session will be held in our Audiology Online classroom on Wednesday, December 2, 2009, at noon Central time. The session is designed to highlight the features of OTOsuite software, maximize your testing efficiency and address questions that are specific to your clinic. The course can be accessed online via an emailed invitation from Audiology Online. You must register with Otometrics prior to the day of the course to receive this invitation.

You can press the Play button on the Audiometer Control Panel to play and score a word list according to the options you have chosen. However, you may choose to double-click on individual words in the list to present them on demand. This allows you to control the word order and presentation speed for difficult-to-test patients or word lists that don’t require scoring, like SRT.

Save specific word lists as User Tests so that you can easily set up the audiometer for pediatric word recognition (e.g., PBK-50) or adult word recognition (e.g., NU-6 list 2A) at the push of a button. Set your Scoring and Playing options to "Play on Count” for speedy word recognition testing for any population!