1. Notification
2. Audiometric Testing
Upon identification of employees whose 8-hour TWA equals or
exceeds 85 dBA, EHRS will inform the employee(s), Occupational
Medicine and the employees' Supervisor, in writing, of the need to
enroll certain employee(s) in the Hearing Conservation Program.
Information supplied to Occupational Medicine will include the
employee(s) name, supervisor's name, telephone number, and the noise
levels recorded in the employee's work area, including dosimetry
data. It will be the responsibility of the Supervisor to enroll
his/her employee in the Hearing Conservation Program.
In work locations where either through administrative or
engineering controls, noise levels are found to have fallen such that
the employee's 8-hour TWA is below 80 dBA, EHRS shall notify the
employees, Occupational Medicine and the employee's Supervisor, by
memo, that the employees working in that area are no longer required
to be enrolled in the Hearing Conservation Program. The final
decision as to an employee's enrollment status will be left with the
Office of Environmental Health and Radiation Safety.
The results of area and personal monitoring shall be forwarded to
Occupational Medicine upon completion of the noise surveys.
Any personnel experiencing difficulty in wearing assigned hearing
protection (i.e., irritation of the canals, pain) will be advised to
immediately report this to their supervisor and make arrangements to
go to Occupational Medicine for evaluation as soon as possible.
The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center's Occupational
Medicine Service has the responsibility for administering the
Audiometric Testing Program portion of the University of Pennsylvania
Hearing Conservation Program. The object of the audiometric testing
program is to identify workers who are beginning to lose their
hearing and to intervene before the hearing loss becomes worse.
Audiometric testing will be provided to all employees whenever
employee noise exposures equal or exceed an 8-hr. time-weighted
average (TWA) of 85 dBA. Annual retesting will be performed for all
personnel enrolled in the Hearing Conservation Medical Surveillance
Program.