The City Clinical Hospital No. 5 in Almaty has opened Kazakhstan’s first tracking center for audiological screening and launched the implementation of a unified registry of patients with hearing disorders.
The projects are being implemented on the basis of the Center of Excellence in Audiology.
The system has already been successfully piloted as part of the “I Hear” project, which covered three maternity hospitals, three primary healthcare organizations, and two audiology offices in Almaty. The results confirmed the effectiveness of the project and the need to scale it up.
“With the opening of the tracking center, we will gradually connect all maternity hospitals and primary healthcare organizations in Almaty to the system. This will allow us to establish a unified pathway for the early detection of hearing disorders and the follow-up of children,” said Marat Pashimov, Head of the Almaty City Healthcare Department, at the opening ceremony.
The “I Hear” project provides comprehensive support for children at every stage, from audiological screening to diagnosis, treatment, hearing rehabilitation, and rehabilitation services. The tracking center will serve as a key element of the system. In real time, it will receive screening results, arrange examinations through a “green corridor” system, and provide follow-up care for children with hearing disorders.
The effectiveness of the system has already been confirmed. Since the beginning of 2026, complete hearing loss has been detected in 11 children at an early stage. All of them have undergone cochlear implantation and are currently receiving rehabilitation.
Following the expansion of the project, more than 90,000 children are expected to undergo annual audiological monitoring. This will make it possible to identify severe hearing disorders and complete hearing loss in children during their first year of life and initiate treatment at an early stage.
At the same time, a unified registry of patients with hearing disorders will be introduced. It will consolidate data on both children and adults, ensure continuous patient follow-up from diagnosis through treatment and rehabilitation, and improve the effectiveness of specialized medical care.
Since the beginning of the year, specialists from the Center of Excellence in Audiology at City Clinical Hospital No. 5 have performed more than 200 hearing-improvement surgeries under the Mandatory Social Health Insurance (MSHI) system. More than 400 patients have received referrals for hearing aids.
Today, the center provides specialized medical care to patients from across Kazakhstan, with Almaty residents accounting for 58% of all patients.