Share article
The way we think about workplace hearing conservation is changing fast.
For decades, occupational audiometric testing meant scheduling a mobile van, pulling employees off the line for a few hours once a year, and waiting weeks for results that may or may not trigger any meaningful follow-up. The process was slow, records lived at the vendor, and STS follow-up often happened too late to matter.
That model is being replaced — and if you're evaluating your current audiometric testing vendor, the right time to make that evaluation is before an OSHA inspection or a workers' compensation claim forces the issue.
The most underappreciated issue in a vendor transition is record ownership. Your audiometric records — baselines, annual test series, STS determinations, follow-up documentation — are legally yours. They are required to be retained for the duration of employment (OSHA 1910.95(m)(2)). They are the evidentiary foundation of every workers' compensation apportionment defense you will ever need to make.
Before switching vendors, get your complete historical record in a portable format. Do not leave a vendor relationship without a full export of every audiometric record in your program. Gaps in the historical record are liabilities.
The 21-day OSHA notification window for Standard Threshold Shifts runs from the date of professional supervisor determination — not from the test date. In the mobile van model, that window starts 2–4 weeks after the test. In an in-house automated testing platform, results are reviewed within hours or days.
When evaluating a new vendor or platform, ask specifically: what is the median time from audiometric test completion to professional supervisor review and STS determination? The answer tells you how much of your 21-day compliance window you're losing to process latency.
OSHA requires audiometric test results to be reviewed by a licensed audiologist, otolaryngologist, or physician. The reviewing professional supervisor must determine whether each STS is work-related, whether medical referral is warranted, and what follow-up actions are required.
In the mobile van model, the professional supervisor is a remote contractor reviewing high volumes of records with limited facility-specific context. In the Soundtrace model, the professional supervision function is built into the platform with per-audiogram communication capability between the supervising audiologist and the facility's program administrator.
OSHA requires baseline audiograms within 6 months of first exposure. In the mobile van model, a new hire starting in January at a facility with an annual October visit may wait 9 months for their baseline — during which time OSHA requires HPDs to be worn from day one, but the program has no audiometric record to track against.
An in-house testing platform eliminates this gap entirely. Baselines are established within days of hire, and the annual cycle runs from the individual employee's test date rather than a facility-wide calendar.
Changing audiometric testing vendors mid-program is straightforward when the transition is managed carefully. The key steps: obtain your complete historical record from the outgoing vendor, verify the format is compatible with the incoming platform, establish a record transfer protocol for employees with prior STSs on file, and confirm the incoming professional supervisor has reviewed the historical record before any employee's next annual audiogram.
Soundtrace supports vendor transitions with a structured onboarding process that includes historical record import, baseline verification, and professional supervisor orientation for all enrolled employees. If you're evaluating a change, start with a conversation about what your current program's records look like and where the gaps are.