Thursday 22 December 2011

Medical transcription companies are very accurate


Medical transcription, also known as MT, is an allied health profession, which deals in the process of transcription, or converting voice-recorded reports as dictated by physicians and/or other healthcare professionals, into text format. Evolution of transcription dates back to the 1960s. The method was designed to assist in the manufacturing process. The first transcription that was developed in this process was MRP, which is the acronym for Manufacturing Resource Planning, in 1975. This was followed by another advanced version namely MRP2. But none of them yielded the benefit of medical transcription. However, transcription equipment has changed from manual typewriters to electric typewriters to word processors to computers and from plastic disks and magnetic belts to cassettes and endless loops and digital recordings. Today, speech recognition (SR), also known as continuous speech recognition (CSR), is increasingly being used, with medical transcriptionists and or "editors" providing supplemental editorial services, although there are occasional instances where SR fully replaces the MT. Natural-language processing takes "automatic" transcription a step further, providing an interpretive function that speech recognition alone does not provide (although MTs do).

Medical transcription encompasses the MT, performing document typing and formatting functions according to an established criteria or format, transcribing the spoken word of the patient's care information into a written, easily readable form. MT requires correct spelling of all terms and words, (occasionally) correcting medical terminology or dictation errors. MTs also edit the transcribed documents, print or return the completed documents in a timely fashion. All transcription reports must comply with medico-legal concerns, policies and procedures, and laws under patient confidentiality.

Currently, a growing number of medical transcription companies send their dictation by digital voice files, utilizing a method of transcription called speech or voice recognition. Speech recognition is still a nascent technology that loses much in translation. For dictators to utilize the software, they must first train the program to recognize their spoken words. Dictation is read into the database and the program continuously "learns" the spoken words and phrases. It is very important to have a properly formatted, edited, and reviewed medical transcription document.

If a Medicaltranscription companies accidentally typed a wrong medication or the wrong diagnosis, the patient could be at risk if the doctor (or his designee) did not review the document for accuracy. Both the doctor and the medical transcription company play an important role to make sure the transcribed dictation is correct and accurate. The doctor should speak slowly and concisely, especially when dictating medications or details of diseases and conditions, and the medical transcriptionist must possess hearing acuity, medical knowledge, and good reading comprehension in addition to checking references when in doubt.

The transcriptionist is bound to transcribe verbatim (exactly what is said) and make no changes, but has the option to flag any report inconsistencies. On some occasions, the doctors do not speak clearly, or voice files are garbled. Some doctors are, unfortunately, time-challenged and need to dictate their reports quickly (as in ER Reports). In addition, there are many regional or national accents and (mis)pronunciations of words the MT must contend with. It is imperative and a large part of the job of the Transcriptionist to look up the correct spelling of complex medical terms, medications, obvious dosage or dictation errors, and when in doubt should "flag" a report. A "flag" on a report requires the dictator (or his designee) to fill in a blank on a finished report, which has been returned to him, before it is considered complete. Transcriptionists are never, ever permitted to guess, or 'just put in anything' in a report transcription. Furthermore, medicine is constantly changing. New equipment, new medical devices, and new medications come on the market on a daily basis, and the Medical Transcriptionist needs to be creative and to tenaciously research (quickly) to find these new words. An MT needs to have access to, or keep on memory, an up-to-date library to quickly facilitate the insertion of a correctly spelled device. 

Monday 12 December 2011

Medical transcription in India is booming


Medical Transcription means re-presenting dictation into inscribed form, the dictation by the physicians and healthcare professionals regarding patient assessment, progress, medical actions, clinical course, diagnosis, prognosis, in order to document patient care and provide healthcare services. Simply putting it is typing out a recorded voice message of a doctor. A Medical Transcriptionist is a medical Language specialist who, using a computer, headphones and a foot pedal, transliterates the recorded audio into electronic data. This data is further examined for parsing and accuracy by a proofreader. The common practice followed by doctors is to dictate and record information and reports of the patient, either into audiotape, Dictaphone or on to digital voice processing systems. These tapes are then sent to external medical transcription companies involved in medical transcription to convert these voice dictations into hard text reports. These reports represent the patient’s treatment history, including impost.

Medical transcription, also known as MT, is an allied health profession, which deals in the process of transcription; converting voice-recorded reports as dictated by physicians and/or other healthcare professionals, into text format. It is an integral part of medical healthcare sector. Medical transcription facilitates the need of saving data about the crucial information about a particular patient’s complete history; person’s background, consulting details, medicines prescribed. In short pertinent up-to-date, confidential patient information is converted to a written text document by a medical transcriptionist (MT). This text may be printed and placed in the patient's record and/or retained only in electronic format.

Medical transcription services can be performed by MTs who are working in hospitals or who work at home as telecommuting employees for the hospital; by MTs working as telecommuting employees or independent freelancers for an outsourced service that performs the work offsite under contract to a hospital, clinic, physician group or other healthcare provider; or by MTs working directly for the providers of medical transcriptionservices, either onsite or telecommuting as employees or contractors. Hospital facilities often prefer electronic storage of medical records due to the sheer volume of hospital in house patients and the accumulation of tons of paperwork. The electronic storage in hospitals database gives immediate access to concerned departments and even medical transcription services providers regarding the patient's care to date, amount of previous or present medications, notification of allergies, and establishes a history on the patient to facilitate healthcare delivery regardless of geographical distance or location. This has to be done quickly and efficiently.

Medical transcription companies in India are served by highly qualified team of professionals to provide unparalleled medical transcription services. Medical transcription companies consist of a team of transcriptionists, editors, quality controllers and proofreaders, who have great proficiency in utilizing the software tools and dictation equipment. The experts of medical transcription field transcribe complex medical records and reports into 100% error free documents.  Professionals serving in the industry need to have good listening and language skills of several medical descriptive. Person interested in this field need to undergo full-fledged training in order to meet the demand of this service sector.