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available resources. Most begin full-shift exposures assessed against the 8-hour OELs. Later, you can assess tasks with periodic aspects to them, like cleaning out a tank or adding chemical ingredients to a mixture when concentrations can temporarily spike. Once you have established a baseline of samples, you can adjust the IH sampling plan accordingly. You may determine you do not have sufficient data to make accurate determination of the risk, or you may decide there is sufficient data and reduce the number of samples required.
A good IH software solution assists with many of the mundane tasks associated with building your IH sampling plan by giving you a simple platform for selecting chemicals from your chemical inventory to be sampled, identifying correct analytical methods and even helping choose the right laboratories for the job. Cloud- based solutions benefit users the most by making information accessible to all those who need access to it, including corporate EHS representatives, consultants and laboratory personnel. This helps streamline the hand-off of responsibilities from one stakeholder to the other, minimizes errors and saves both time and effort throughout the overall process.
Improved Employee Reporting Requirements
Once you have your IH sampling results, you need to share the results with employees. Specific standards require employers to automatically notify affected employees of monitoring results. For instance, you must notify your employees of their methylene chloride exposures within 15 working days of receiving results. The OSHA Standard “Access to Employee Exposure and Medical Records” in 1910.1020 requires you to provide access to exposure records within 15 days of an employee request. If this cannot be done, you must inform the employee of the reason for the delay and the earliest day when the records will be available.
Software helps streamline these notification requirements by allowing you to track and maintain your results in one centralized location. Most solutions today will flag results that exceed the applicable OEL to make it easier to prioritize and automate communications and know when follow-on activities are needed.
Preparing for the Unexpected
COVID-19 has created unprecedented demand for respirators, especially N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs), which are among the preferred models for reducing risk of exposure since they remove approximately 95 percent of very small (0.3 micron) particles, including bacteria and viruses.
This expanded use has introduced an entirely new challenge, as employers who had a very small respiratory protection program, or not at all, before COVID-19 are now scrambling to get one up and running. This is mostly due to the fact that special testing with appropriate protocols must be followed for each person using these types of respirators, which takes extra time and resources. OSHA’s Respiratory Protection Standard and respirator fit test (RFT) requirements are among the most important of those obligations because they ensure that the specific respirators employees rely on will actually provide the required level of protection. As part of an effective respiratory protection program, RFTs need to be performed and documented for every worker who wears a respirator and for every covered respirator used.
Good IH software helps you implement and maintain a centralized RFT program by standardizing the scheduling, documentation and follow up of your activities. The best systems streamline management across multiple locations and a large number of employees by allowing you to more easily see which workers use which types of respirators, schedule and assign fit tests, select from pre-defined fit testing procedures and record results to easily demonstrate compliance. Typical testing protocols (like those required by OSHA and others) take between seven and eight minutes per employee, and completing paper forms takes another three to five minutes. Software significantly cuts down this time to improve efficiency and verify worker safety and compliance with less effort, time and cost.
Some EHS software providers recognized the unprecedented and urgent need for respirator fit testing among groups that did not already have a program in place and provided complimentary software access to customers serving on the front lines of the COVID-19 response including hospitals, health care facilities, fire departments and other emergency responders. This not only demonstrates the sudden need for an IH program but also how easy software makes it to implement such a program more quickly and easily.
Build More Organizational-Wide Support
A significant, but often overlooked, benefit of IH software is its ability to help gain organizational-wide support and buy-in. IH management is often decentralized, with each site doing its own thing—a trend that creates a vicious circle. The lack of visibility isolates IH from other company efforts, the value of IH gets lost in management’s eyes, and IH is further deprioritized.
No matter your level of expertise, IH software provides the control and visibility needed to manage all aspects of IH and demonstrate the value of your efforts. The best solutions provide you with more than just a passive IH database, but instead provide you with real support to plan and implement your IH program following proven strategies, assess your IH performance in real-time, coordinate with your staff, consultants, laboratories and, most importantly, prove the value of IH to management and others.
Planning for COVID-19 and Beyond
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted businesses and changed the way they approach workplace health and safety. While having an existing IH program in place helped some better approach these changes, it also left many scrambling to create one to protect their workforce.
No matter where you fall on the IH maturity curve, EHS software is empowering employees at all levels to make workplaces healthier, more productive environments. By cutting through the time and complexity of the most important IH tasks, software makes it possible to maintain a world-class program and have real- time visibility and reporting of important activities now during COVID-19 and beyond.
Dave Risi, CIH, CSP is the director of industrial hygiene solutions at VelocityEHS, the global leader in cloud environment, health, safety (EHS) and sustainability software.
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SEPTEMBER 2020 | Occupational Health & Safety 25