Management Responsibilities
While management may provide the record keeping system and the necessary resources, the program implementers must ensure that the system works. The most important attributes of an effective record keeping system are standardization, maintenance, integration, and documentation.
Standardization ensures commonality and consistency of data and format. Maintenance keeps records current and accurate. Integration of the recorded information allows the program implementer to assess the impact of the program on employees' hearing. Documentation of hearing conservation program elements permits analysis of long-range implications since cause-effect relationships associated with hazardous exposure levels only become evident over time.
Program implementers may wish to consider the following rule of thumb regarding how long records should be kept: Keep all records until you leave - then let the next person decide how long to keep the records. More practically, records should be kept for the length of employment plus 30 years, just as is standard practice with medical records. Thus, it is important for the program implementer to have resources for adequate records storage facilities be they computer based or in hard copies.
In addition, a working group of the American National Standards Institute has drafted guidelines for analyzing audiometric data to evaluate hearing conservation program effectiveness-ANSI S12.13, Draft Standard for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Hearing Conservation Programs. The procedures of this standard are most useful in determining that the audiometric data are consistent and lack much variability; that the database has integrity. If year-to-year audiograms show changes that are due to poor audiometry and not to changes in hearing, it will be impossible to use the audiometric data to determine whether or not the hearing conservation program is successful.
The domain of hearing loss prevention embraces many technical disciplines: hearing science, audiology, industrial hygiene, occupational health, psychology, sociology, electroacoustics, and mechanical engineering, to name a few. Each of these is a dynamic specialty. Within any of these fields, what constituted "standard practice" only a few years ago is unlikely to be today's standard. It follows that today's standards will also evolve. Because hearing loss prevention represents the integration of many vibrant elements, it too, must change.