Let me now switch from discussing what could/should be guiding our decision making processes to what we believe is currently the state of company Hearing Conservation Programs.

As shown in the illustration, many company programs have a common and serious flaw. The data from each of the different elements of the program are stored separately. Our visual metaphor shows that we have a number of filing cabinets in the company - some of them holding medical data, some holding monitoring data, some holding data on hearing protection usage. Yet, very few companies have actually related this data together such that they can tell how well their program is doing, and also if the program is not accomplishing what they had hoped, or most importantly, why that outcome is occurring.