WHY CHOOSE THE 3M ONLINE RESPIRATOR MEDICAL EVALUATION SYSTEM?

Damarco Solutions, LLC partners with 3M to provide the 3M Online Respirator Medical Evaluation System. Damarco Solutions’ role is the development and maintenance of the actual system including all programming, data security and integrity (for medical data), customer support for the system, as well as the actual review by Occupational Medicine doctors. 3M’s role is to provide the billing and payment processing functions. There are many criteria you should consider when evaluating which online respirator medical evaluation product is right for you and your employees. For many reasons, we believe the 3M Online Respirator Medical Evaluation is a superior product. When evaluating the providers some questions to ask are:

Can I enter my own recertification period?

OSHA does not have a required recertification period. The 3M Online Respirator Medical Evaluation system allows you to choose a recertification period that works for you (we do recommend the ANSI standard which is an age-based standard where employees age 35 and younger test every 5 years, age 36 to 45 test every 2 years, age 46+ test every year because as an employee ages it is more likely they would have changes to their health that might affect their ability to wear a respirator). If the system you choose only provides certification for 1 year increments, you are likely paying their fee much more frequently than you are paying our fee.

Is the information my employees and I provide secure?

This is an all too often overlooked, and very important question. Damarco Solutions subjects its system to rigorous and regular 3rd party audits to meet or exceed the NIST 800-53 standards of data security. The security and integrity of the data you and your employees provide is of the utmost importance to us and we do not cut corners in ensuring it. We do not utilize shared servers and in addition to our system audits, our servers are housed in NIST 800-53 data centers.

What are the credentials of the PLHCP who is certifying the employees?

Our system was developed by Occupational Medicine Physicians and we have only Occupational Medicine Physicians making the determination as to whether your employee is able to safely wear a respirator. Occupational Medicine Physicians are specially trained in occupational health.

Does the system provide full compliance with the OSHA general respirator standard medical evaluation requirements?

Follow up questions to this may include: Does the system gather the specific respirator type, use, and work conditions from the employer or the employee required in 1910.134(e)(5)(i)? The information should be provided by the employer because they are responsible for the hazard assessment and thus should know what type of respirator should be used and under what conditions they will be used. If the system relies on the employee to provide the information, it is likely to be inaccurate or incomplete necessitating retesting to be in compliance. Does the system request the employer to send in their written respirator program? Pursuant to 1910.134(e)(5)(iii), the employer shall provide the PLHCP with a copy of the written respirator program. The 3M Online Respirator Medical Evaluation System reminds but does not mandate the employer comply with this section in order to assist the employer in being in compliance with all aspects of the Medical Evaluation requirements.

Does the system rely solely on Appendix C of the General OSHA Standard?

If it does have follow-up questions, are they accompanied by logic extensive enough to attain a 98% certification rate? Some online systems simply use an electronic version of Appendix C. Others have added some follow-up questions to improve their certification rate, but only the 3M Online Medical Evaluation system is built with the extensive logic to attain a 98% certification rate consistently. The logic built into the 3M system makes the system interactive. Employees are asked appropriate questions based on the respirator type(s) and work conditions provided by the employer and the medical information provided by the employee ensuring a more thorough and comprehensive evaluation that obtains all of the information that our Occupational Medicine Physicians have determined they need to make a determination as to whether your employee can safely wear a respirator.

Does the system provide adequate reporting and notification systems for administrators?

The 3M system provides administrators access to several reports they can utilize to assist in their medical evaluation record keeping. These reports can be viewed online or downloaded into excel spreadsheets for data manipulation or uploading to your internal company systems. We also provide optional email notifications when employees are certified, referred, or due for recertification. Additionally, the system provides a means to track when annual fit-testing is due for your employees. Your administrators will never have access to your employee’s medical information via the online system (surprisingly, this is something we have seen other systems allow despite OSHA’s assertion that employers should never look at or review an employee’s medical information). We follow HIPAA requirements in our management of medical data.

Customer Service.

The customer service staff for the 3M Online Medical Evaluation system is available via toll-free telephone or email from 8 am to 4:30pm CST Monday through Friday. The staff is frequently commended by our customers for their outstanding service. They can help you with questions that come up during account set up, help employees if they have questions before, during, or after taking the evaluation, provide webinars to introduce you to the system, or help you set up a company structure if your company has multiple locations that you want to organize under one account.

The questions and information above are not intended to be a comprehensive overview of the 3M Online Medical Evaluation System.