Optimum Safety Management / Amerisafe Group: The extraordinary safety services and solutions you’ve been using from Optimum Safety Management will now be provided to you by Amerisafe Consulting and Safety Services, LLC (ACSS). The same great team, now with even more resources and solutions to support your mission.
We have a team that can come to your location to perform the testing at any time. Whether you’re looking to invest in a respirator fit test program for one employee or for a large group, we can help. Not only is our testing accurate and timely, but we make sure that our respirator fit tests are performed in accordance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA’s) Respiratory Protection standard and use OSHA accepted test agents.
Amerisafe has the ability to perform respirator fit testing for individual employees, small groups of employees or for large groups of employees. Depending on your workplace, you may need either a qualitative fit test, a quantitative fit test, or both.
The main difference between small-group and large-group testing is the time the process will take. Amerisafe is here to help with any size group testing you need.
A quantitative fit test measures the amount of leakage instead of relying on the wearer’s senses or physical responses. In quantitative testing, the respirator is attached to a machine that is used to interpret and record leakage results, and if these results do not meet the necessary criteria, they are determined to be unusable in real-world hazardous situations. There are three different agents used in quantitative fit testing that are also accepted under OSHA standards. These three different agents are:
If your workplace requires the use of respirators to protect against harmful dusts, mists, vapors, solvents, and other airborne hazards, your employees must be fit tested annually to ensure their respirator is still fitting correctly. Because respirators come in different models and sizes, a fit test must be performed on each different make/model respirator worn by an employee.
With the help of properly fitted respirators, most contaminants in the air that can cause bodily harm if inhaled can be filtered out. Some of the many industries that commonly use respirators include:
Fit testing isn’t required for the voluntary use of dust masks. However, the employees do need to be trained on the use and limitations of the dust mask, as well as Appendix D of the OSHA Respiratory Protection Standard. If employees want to voluntarily wear half or full face respirators, the employer has to comply with some requirements of the respiratory protection standard. However, these do not include fit testing.