HUNT VALLEY, Md. -- When shoppers check out at Wegmans supermarket in this Baltimore suburb, they can choose self-scan, express or wheelchair-accessible lanes. Recently, they've been offered another option. In two designated "looped" aisles, concealed technology can erase background noise and make it easier for customers with hearing loss to converse with store clerks and others.
Wegmans installed induction hearing loops, designed to deliver speech clearly to hearing aids or implants in noisy environments, in 17 stores last year after testing the technology at two stores near its headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.
The grocer now plans to install the stations in all 88 stores in six states by the end of the year. Besides checkout lanes, loops are available at the pharmacy and customer service department.
"We want to provide customers with hearing loss a better way to ask questions, an easier shopping experience," said Jo Natale, a Wegmans spokesman. "We want them to be comfortable in our stores."
The technology -- which works with hearing aids or implants with telecoils, or T-coils -- has been available for decades and is used in places such as churches and auditoriums. Loops are widely used in the United Kingdom, but installation has been slower and spottier in the United States, experts said. Wegmans is the first supermarket/pharmacy chain to roll loops out across its brand, advocates said.
The systems use condenser microphones that capture the sound of someone speaking. "Smart" amplifiers remove background noise and send the clarified sound to an induction loop, which converts it into a wireless electromagnetic field. T-coils act like antennae, picking up the signal and delivering the sound to the ear.
The technology is "just getting going" in the U.S., where it can be found mostly in churches, meeting rooms, libraries, theaters and school auditoriums, said Juliette Sterkens, a retired audiologist who travels the nation advocating for hearing loop technology for the Hearing Loss Association of America.
"Wegmans is being very proactive," Sterkens said. "They are not required to do this. They are doing this as a matter of good customer service."
Hearing loops eliminate distractions caused by background noise, reverberation or distance, she said.
"Background noise and reverberation kill speech understanding for people with hearing loss," she said, even with improvements in hearing aids, which work best at a short distance.
At Wegmans, signs alert customers to loops, but the only other visible signs are small black microphones attached to the credit card readers at service counters and checkout lanes. The systems are designed to be unobtrusive, and store employees and non-hearing-impaired customers might never know when it's in use, said Sarah Guthall, Wegmans' information technology zone technician for Maryland. Users only need to flip a switch on their hearing aid to activate the T-coil.
Melissa O'Neill, 36, president of the Greater Baltimore chapter of the Hearing Loss Association, said she has used a hearing aid since she was a child. She said she relies on loops at her church and the association's meeting room but knows of no others in the area.
"That's pretty cool," O'Neill said when told about the loops at Wegmans. "I would be more likely to go and support a business that did have loops."
O'Neill described the technology as providing a direct line into her hearing aid.
"It's a lot better," she said. "It definitely helps. ... It definitely improves things for the hard-of-hearing population."
Nearly two-thirds of people age 70 and older have a major hearing impairment, said Frank R. Lin, an associate professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, geriatric medicine, mental health and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University and its Bloomberg School of Public Health.
"Hearing loss is really, really common," Lin said. "Anyone with any substantive degree of hearing impairment in an environment with a lot of background noise, at checkout at grocery stores or talking to pharmacists, it makes it very, very difficult to hear, even with hearing aids. It can make all the difference in not wanting to go out."
SundayMonday Business on 02/01/2016