2024 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 17-19, 2024 • Denver, CO
THE ANTONIA BRANCIA MAXON AWARD FOR EHDI EXCELLENCE
Stephanie McVicar
We are honored to nominate Dr. Stephanie McVicar, the Utah EHDI Coordinator, for the 2022 Antonia Brancia Maxon Award for EHDI Excellence. Stephanie's dedication to the babies and families in Utah is exemplary and has helped inform best practices nationally and internationally.
Stephanie demonstrates exemplary work in meeting the demands of being a grant-funded principal investigator for Utah's HRSA and CDC EHDI grants and goes above and beyond in promoting hearing health for babies. Stephanie's dedication to getting babies the services they need and deserve is highlighted in the work she has done with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV).
In 2013, under Stephanie's leadership, Utah was the first state to pass hearing-targeted CMV screening. Once the CMV screening legislation passed, there were hurdles in educating healthcare providers (HCP) across the state. However, with immense perseverance, Stephanie, and her tenacious team, were able to provide education and resources to HCPs in a variety of ways such as creating a CMV reporting module, instituting CMV report cards for hospitals, obtaining a CMV lab/ABR standing order, getting CMV approved as a reportable disease, CMV qualifying as a qualifying diagnosis for early intervention, and getting CMV best practice protocols for audiologists. These efforts facilitated knowledge of CMV, best practices for screening and follow-up, and generally made it easier for agencies to meet the mandated requirements. Stephanie and her team continue to keenly monitor data to ensure timely CMV testing and follow up to provide CMV-affected babies treatment and intervention.
Over the last 8 years, Stephanie has shared her CMV-screening expertise with state, national and international stakeholders through conference and small group presentations, public awareness events, mass media marketing, individualized assistance, and publishing research articles with the goal of helping others develop their own CMV statutes and mandates. Specifically, Stephanie worked with the National CMV Foundation to help identify and award agencies small grants that promote CMV awareness and education. She has made over 25 large and small group presentations and has published three CMV peer-reviewed articles.
Stephanie's work has led to real improvements for children who are deaf or hard of hearing and children who have CMV. In 2019, more Utah babies than ever before are getting a diagnosis of hearing loss by the 3-month benchmark and 96% of babies that failed their hearing test are being screened for CMV. This great progress stems from Stephanie's passion for infant hearing health and her dedication to making Utah a healthy place for babies and families.