In the ENT Department of the University of Perugia it has been developed an intensive voluntary universal hearing screening program for newborns. Two teams of four medical doctors were recruited to carry out testing from January 1999 to March 2001. The screening protocol was derived from a pilot study lasted from January 1991 to December 1998 (fig.1) and consisted in sequential testing using otoacoustic emissions (OAE), with bilateral failures then being tested using auditory brainstem responses (ABR) (fig.2). The screening tests were performed in the hospital in the well-baby population as the hospital is the obvious site for attempting to accomplish universal screening on a captive audience. All ABR failures, both unilateral or bilateral, were referred for full audiological assessment.