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According to the World Health Organization, approximately 466 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss. Projections show that number growing to 900 million by 2050. Undiagnosed and untreated hearing loss can have significant effects on someone’s quality of life. Because hearing loss is not visible, people with hearing loss tend to ignore their difficulties, or may not recognize the early stages of hearing loss.
In the event that an employee suffers a work-related illness or injury, the employer is required to complete a form known as the OSHA 300 Log. This Log is used to categorize and track the severity of the illness or injury.
Vanessa Gauthier-Davidson, an In-house Audiologist at SHOEBOX Ltd acts as a coordinator of the SHOEBOX Audiology Review Network; an international team of licensed Audiologists available to assist SHOEBOX customers meet their OSHA and MSHA compliance requirements. The Audiology Review Network offers businesses compliant access to regionally-licensed Audiologist(s) for rapid review of their occupational hearing testing results.
In an occupational hearing testing program, there are a series of steps to follow as you work through the process of testing. We call these steps a workflow. This includes preparing your audiometer for a day of testing, preparing your employees, administering the testing itself, offering training, administering questionnaires, reviewing results with the employees, retesting as needed, and following through on required follow-up actions. All of these activities feed into the workflow of your program.
There have never been better audiometer options for occupational hearing testing than what’s available now. Despite the advances in technology, there are still quick verification tasks that will help ensure that your testing equipment is performing the way it should every day of testing.
One thing that makes SHOEBOX Audiometry unique is that it has been optimized for hearing testing outside of a sound-proof booth. However, that doesn’t mean that any location will be acceptable for testing. OSHA provides detailed guidelines for how to test outside of a booth as long as you stay within the prescribed sound levels, or Maximum Permissible Ambient Noise Levels (MPANLs).
