Electronic Medical Transcription

Like everything, medical transcription has also been through phases of evolution. Medical transcription is a rather dynamic industry with new experiments and additions going on everyday. The industry evolved from manual typewriters to electronic typewriters to word processor and then to plastic disks, magnetic belts and finally to digital recordings. Voice Recognition System or VRS is the recent evolution in the medical transcription industry.

VRS is used by medical transcriptionists and proof-readers in providing supplementary editorial services. There are certain cases where the VRS has completely replaced medical transcription. Earlier, medical transcription (MT) consisted of handwritten notes with lots of abbreviations and responsibilities of the physician. These notes and interpretations were then supplemented in patient’s file for reference.

The handwritten notes and typed notes are all consolidated and kept in a file along with the records of other patients for further reference. Whenever, a physician required the record of a specific patient, the patient’s file is retrieved from the huge mass of files. To enhance this process, usually two or three carbon copies of same medical record are kept in a single file.

But now things have completely changed. Huge files have given way to desktop computers that are connected with powerful servers. A patient’s record is processed and archived individually in these servers. The unique digital format allows instant access to these servers even from the remote location. Medical transcriptionists now work closely with the programmers to stream in voice and get continuous data through network interfaces.

In fact, healthcare providers now make use of personal data assistants (PDA) and other softwares for their service. The Computer Aided Medical Transcription (CAMT) is a software that is exclusively designed for medical transcription industry. The CAMT has several benefits that are attributing to its popularity. Following are some of them:

Changing Medical Dictation to Text: The CAMT software change spoken words to texts. This software was especially developed for medical transcription.

An Efficient Interface for Medical Transcriptionists: Using these softwares you can easily increase your editing speed. In these softwares, editing is done as fast as keyboard stokes and shortcuts.

Interpreting and Formatting Document: CAMT perfectly understands what a physician intends to mean and transcribe accordingly. For example, the software understands when the word "next" refers to ‘3’ in the list and when the physician uses it to mean the next section.

Every year the healthcare providers spend thousands of dollars for the increased charges of the MT industry. Further, there also had been a dearth in the number of efficient medical transcriptionists. The advent of the CAMT helped the service providers in saving few dollars that they would otherwise spent for the MT industry.

The invention of CAMT has revolutionized medical transcription industry. It can now deliver high quality work within turn around time (TAT). The software is simple and easy to use. This software has brought this industry at the edge of a huge change and it’s also time for us to change our concept of medical transcription.

AT Promantra, Electronic Medical Transcription attains a different height. We use a special software for medical transcription, named Proscribe. Proscribe handles the tiring job of file allocation and also checks the accuracy of the transcription. Proscribe would be soon taken to a new level which would include VRS that could be used for automatic dictation. Electronic Medical Transcription at Promantra is geared up with all modern paraphernalia to serve its existing and prospective clients with flawless transcription.

Medical Transcription: The Future Perspective

Medical transcription industry brought great hopes and aspirations in the economic atmosphere of India during 1995-97. It can be described as India’s first step in outsourcing business. Even before BPO turned into a domestic name, medical transcription creates its impact on Indian minds. People were excited about the huge opportunity that suddenly stroke India.

The advent of the new millennium witnessed massive growth of BPO with its enormous opportunities and dollar dreams. As a result the medical transcription industry underwent a phase of dilemma. Just when a notion is developing that the medical transcription industry is down and out, it is staging its way back and is all set for an exponential growth in India. Cbay Systems, which is incorporated in early 1998 in U.S., has started acting upon its gigantic plans of expansion with about 95 per cent outsourcing from India.

Medical transcription is projected as the fastest growing segment among allied healthcare services. The demand for efficient medical transcriptionist is further instigated by the growing aging population and also by the HIPAA regulation, which declared mandatory to convert medical records into digital format. The Department of Labor in U.S., shows a growth of about 18 to 25 per cent of this business.

The voice recognition technology still can not read every human spoken word. Hence, the transcription can not be error free. It would take years to teach the software to get detailed and accurate transcription. Thus digital medical transcription becomes obvious. Outsourcing digital medical transcription further ensures that the work is done with equal accuracy and efficiency but in a cost-effective manner.

The good pay and relatively acceptable working hours have brought medical transcription outsourcing industry on the verge of a new beginning. As medical transcription requires only the voice recording, there is lesser chance for graveyard shift, which is most likely for the call centers. Unfazed by the global economic meltdown, medical transcription outsourcing industry in India is all ready for its growth.

V.Raman Kumar, the Chairman and founder of Cbay Systems declared that the company is looking forward for a phenomenal growth in the medical transcription outsourcing domain. The company is about to increase its strength from 700 in India to 5,000 and is looking for places, like Guntur for its operation. He also mentioned that the company has not lost any of its clients because of the economic turmoil.

The approximate strength of medical transcription industry in India is 18,000 and is expected to grow to 52,000 by 2010. U.S. contributes to about $ 25 billion in the medical transcription industry, of which $3 billion is outsourced. India’s share is only about $40 million of this total outsourced amount. Raman points out that U.S. is in dearth of medical transcriptionists. The situation is further complicated as the MTs expect double-digit rates. Hence outsourcing becomes inevitable and India expected to fill the void.