Support for Federal Agency Hearing Conservation Program

Noise-induced hearing loss is a persistent challenge for a federal agency with over 15,000 employees potentially exposed to hazardous noise on the job. Annual hearing tests are crucial for preventing additional hearing loss, but the agency has over 50 locations, and hundreds of satellite offices, often in remote locations, so providing annual hearing tests in clinics is extremely challenging. 

ERG (working as a subcontractor to Solv LLC) helped the agency overhaul its hearing conservation program by (1) switching to portable audiometers that allow employees to take hearing tests without leaving their office, (2) developing a tool for employees to schedule appointments, and (3) developing dashboards to quickly show compliance at the organizational, office, or individual employee level. The new system allows consistent, easy hearing tests, eliminates data entry errors, centralizes results collection, and notifies employees of results quickly. ERG also helped our client deploy the portable audiometers across the field, keep equipment in calibration, and train personnel to administer the self-guided hearing tests. In addition, we evaluated engineering controls for especially loud impulse noise exposures and assessed various hearing protection combinations to allow employees to protect their hearing without sacrificing the ability to communicate effectively. With these improvements ERG has helped our client lead the way in safety while protecting their most important resource, their employees, without sacrificing job performance.