MAJ Cheryl Cameron
Hearing Conservation program managers in the Army are charged with the responsibility of reporting program effectiveness to the Installation Medical Authority annually. The Potential Civilian Hearing Loss Compensation report was one of the means by which program effectiveness was reported for civilian personnel. The Hearing Evaluation Automated Registry System (HEARS) Managers Module generated the report. Since deployment of DOEHRS-HC in 1998, this report has not been available. However, the requirement to report program effectiveness remains. More importantly, programs managers need a means to monitor the effectiveness of their programs for program planning and budgeting purposes.
Each year the USACHPPM Hearing Conservation Program provides a summary of civilian hearing loss compensation for the previous year, this data has traditionally been reported for the Army, Air Force Navy and Marines. Use of the data that comprise the annual summary can also be used to determine hearing loss compensation costs by MACOM and installation. Thus, hearing loss compensation data may be a viable substitute for the Potential Hearing Loss Compensation report. However, the Office of Workers' Compensation (OWCP) data is not without complexities that will cause reports to be imprecise.
This presentation will discuss the complexities of OWCP data collection that can affect hearing loss compensation reports especially at the installation level and explore the practicality of using actual OWCP data as means of monitoring and reporting program effectiveness.