Page 12 - OHS, April/May 2025

I N D U S T R I A L H Y G I E N E
… Having a detailed, real-time
visibility into workplace chemical
inventory is a huge step toward
ensuring that you’re identifying and
controlling all chemical hazards.
ciple of grouping workers with similar exposure characteristics and
monitoring a relatively small subset of those workers to extrapo-
late exposure risks across the entire SEG. Compared to individual
worker monitoring, SEGs help greatly reduce sampling eff ort and
costs. Th e challenge is that SEGs change over time as new exposure
risk factors (e.g., chemicals, processes, equipment, controls, etc.)
are introduced into the workplace, and failing to maintain your
SEGs can leave workers exposed to uncontrolled risks.
A risk-based approach to managing SEGs that incorporates
MOC processes helps ensure that changes in your chemical inven-
tory, QEAs, and sampling plans (discussed in the next sections)
prompt a review to confi rm that SEGs are still properly defi ned and
representative of actual exposure risks. You don’t want to introduce
chemicals into the workplace only to realize aft er the fact that ex-
posed workers are not enrolled in the appropriate SEG, that the ex-
posure characteristics you use to defi ne your SEGs have changed,
and workers are not being protected.
IH soft ware helps better defi ne and maintain SEGs by allow-
ing IH professionals to more closely assign and track SEG enroll-
ment based on selected exposure risk factors. With the ability to
easily reference data from your chemical inventory systems, QEA
fi ndings and sampling results, IH soft ware enables more accurate
characterization of exposure risks to ensure workers are enrolled in
the right SEGs and that appropriate sampling plans and exposure
controls are in place.
Qualitative Exposure Assessments (QEAs)
Like many other OH&S risk assessment types, the purpose of QEA
is to evaluate exposure likelihood and health eff ect severity to ulti-
mately calculate initial and residual exposure risk scores. In many
ways, QEA forms the foundation for a risk-based approach to IH,
helping IH professionals systematically characterize exposure risks
so they can then defi ne SEGs, develop sampling plans, and imple-
ment appropriate exposure controls.
You should periodically review your QEAs as exposure risks
change, such as when you introduce new chemicals, processes,
equipment, or controls to the workplace. You should apply MOC
processes when reviewing QEAs to ensure that you’re incorporat-
ing any changes to chemical inventory, SEGs, and sampling plans
into your updated QEAs. Similarly, changes to QEAs will likely im-
pact how you defi ne your corresponding SEGs and sampling plans,
so having a systematic framework in place to evaluate and address
10 Occupational Health & Safety | APRIL/MAY 2025 these impacts is what MOC is all about.
IH soft ware with QEA capabilities improves the standardiza-
tion and centralization of your risk assessment processes to ensure
exposure risks are evaluated consistently across SEGs, locations,
and the entire organization. Th is enables an “apples-to-apples”
comparison of exposure risks that facilitates data-driven decisions
and eff ective communication of risks to management.
Developing Sampling Plans
Your sampling plan is essentially a detailed outline of what, where,
and how sampling will occur. Key sampling plan considerations
include:
■ Applicable regulatory sampling requirements
■ SEGs needing further monitoring and confi rmation
■ Sample types and quantities (frequency, OELs, sample me-
dia, etc.)
■ Scheduling and deadlines for sampling activities
Under a compliance-based approach, sampling plans tend to re-
main static since they are primarily defi ned by prescriptive regula-
tory requirements. By contrast, a risk-based approach considers the
changing nature of your chemical inventory, SEGs, and QEAs so that
sampling plans can be periodically reviewed and refi ned, and IH
professionals can better target their sampling activities where they
are needed to address uncertainty around exposure risks.
Simultaneously, you should use your sampling results to con-
fi rm your SEG defi nitions and enrollment, verify QEA fi ndings,
and improve control selection and implementation. Once again,
this review should apply MOC processes to ensure you are ad-
dressing how changes to your sampling plans can aff ect (and be
aff ected by) other IH program functions.
IH soft ware helps achieve greater effi ciency in the documenta-
tion, scheduling, assignment and data collection activities of your
IH sampling plan. Th is also enables clearer communication of your
sampling activities to management and other stakeholders, mak-
ing it easy to ensure sampling is performed according to plan and
helping to demonstrate how IH sampling activities support com-
pliance, reduce exposure risks, and protect worker health.
Leveraging Software for Risk-Based
IH Program Management
Hopefully, the dynamic interplay that exists among your chemi-
cal inventory management process, SEGs, QEAs, and sampling
plans is becoming apparent. Changes in one should ideally prompt
review, update, and improvement of others. Within a risk-based
approach, these otherwise separate IH functions begin to operate
as integral components of a more holistic IH program, and MOC
processes provide the framework to manage them together rather
than separately – making our IH programs more responsive and
eff ective at addressing changing exposure risks.
IH soft ware supports this risk-based approach by centralizing
and standardizing these IH program management functions, sim-
plifying complex data collection and analysis tasks, and facilitating
clearer communication of IH program performance to ultimately
improve IH program performance and help IH professionals ef-
fectively demonstrate the value of the IH program to the business.
Greg Duncan, Senior Content Manager, MELP, CSP; Kristi Hames,
CIH, CSP, Solutions Executive, VelocityEHS
www.ohsonline.com