5 Ways to Improve Your Hearing Conservation Program
From on-demand testing to tele-health features, technology is enhancing hearing conservation programs and offering solutions tailored to today's hearing protection challenges.
- By Chad Coleman
- Nov 08, 2023
Many industries are being disrupted by technology. And if not disrupting legacy business, new technology is at least offering consumers, clients, and other end users new ways to do business.
The safety industry is no exception, as evidenced by the abundance of recent articles on tech, wearables, apps, and other hardware and software. Many safety managers and occupational nurses might not realize that technological evolution is coming to their hearing conservation program.
Portable tablet-based audiometers enable many improvements to hearing testing and training. When a company combines technology with customer service and knowledge about the Hearing Conservation Program, it offers a platform that addresses many of today’s challenges. These platforms offer the best of all your current hearing testing options, while adding some unique benefits. You can do on-demand testing after the mobile unit leaves for missed tests and retests or go completely DIY and take testing into your own hands.
Let’s highlight 5 ways that technology can improve your hearing conservation program.
Test Everybody
The main benefit of using a tablet audiometer is that you can get all your employees tested — no more struggling to find a solution to test your entire employee population.
If you prefer a mobile unit to come onsite to do the heavy lifting and take all the work off your hands, then using a portable audiometer afterwards helps you test the “stragglers” — the people who missed testing while the mobile unit was onsite or those needing a retest. No more booking a follow-up visit for the van or sending your employees to an offsite clinic several towns away.
Many companies decide to take testing in-house, administering testing themselves without using a vendor. This means you can test whenever you want. You can test everybody on your chosen scheduling method, including new hires during the year.
There are two important benefits of both these methods:
- Your employees stay on site, which is a great benefit to your business productivity.
- You have more scheduling flexibility. As a busy safety professional, you need something that works for you. If you only have a small number of employees to test, no more waiting on a vendor to come to your facility who is booked up for the next several months. And if you have a larger program, on-demand testing lets you create a schedule using date of birth, date of hire, or whatever works for you.
This article originally appeared in the November/December 2023 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.