As the technology used by medical transcriptionists changes, so too does the type of work throughout the profession.  Because of this, many medical transcriptionists argue that the term “medical transcription” is outdated and no longer represents the constantly evolving types of work in the industry.  

Due of the broad nature of the field and emerging technologies, the U.S. Department of Labor has asked the medical transcription industry to come up with a new title for the profession.

For those MTSOs and medical transcriptionists who are interested in taking the survey and adding your input, click here: Medical Transcription Career Title Survey

Stephen Denick, national director of sales for Outsourcing Solutions Inc., recently published a short ‘buyer’s guide’ for Advance Web about partnering with an offshore medical transcription service.  Below is a summary of his questions to consider when hiring an offshore medical transcription service:

• Economies of scale? Going overseas is a risk in itself, but the fact is your company could save money.  Make sure your offshore partner has up-to-date technology, plenty of resources, proper quality assurance (QA), and good communication.
• How can the production process help me? Overseas transcriptionists are working while you are sleeping.  Turnaround times can be faster offshore and new technologies such as speech recognition can ease the language barrier.
• What are their security safeguards? Make sure your MTSO has proper internet and computer safety guidelines in place.  Also ask if they perform workstation audits to ensure operations are running smoothly. 
• Will the work be done out of a central facility or via home-based transcription? Home-based transcription abroad is very different from here in the states.  Make sure your MTSO has a central location where the transcribing is performed. 
• Does the company sub-contract work out? Your MTSO should not sub-contract without your permission.  Ask about the review process of documentation and how many times it is checked over before it gets to you.
• What is their technical competency? Ask you IT team to do a little investigative work to see what kinds of IT practices are in place overseas.
• How’s your communication with your vendor? Ultimately, if you cannot understand the person on the phone, do not sign up with the company.  It is important that language barriers are kept to a minimum and that the people answering the phones are fluent in English. 

Click here to read the entire article: Heading Offshore? Tips for Researching Your MTSO.

Laura Bryan, a contributor to the Health Data Matrix business and technology journal, recently wrote a piece describing the technological advancements in the works for medical transcription companies.  Documentation technologies will continue to advance with a heavy bias toward the end users.  As industry experts work toward standardized software, creative ideas are quickly developing.

At the 2008 Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity’s (AHDI) Annual Convention and Expo, students, educators, and supervisors in the medical transcription industry gathered to discuss their experiences with different technologies and software.  The goal of these focus groups was to obtain an end user perspective for new innovations such as speech recognition technology (SRT), natural language processing, data tagging, and abstracting.  Below are some of the key points from Laura Bryan’s article that were gained from the discussions.

• There is too much variation across the industry in regards to the sophistication of technology.
• Not many medical transcriptionists were familiar with data tagging and natural language processing, while a majority either worked or had knowledge of SRT.
• Transcription training programs currently do not have a curriculum for these new technologies and do not plan on integrating them.
• Hence, new education programs must be developed to introduce the software to prospective transcriptionists
• In this economy, transcriptionists worry about the information costs, such as training expenses, associated with transferring over to new technology systems. 
• With regards to grammar, punctuation, and style, professionals who transcribe using traditional methods are held to higher standards than transcriptionists using SRT.
• According to experienced SRT transcriptionists, the notion that transcribing with SRT is easier and does not require much knowledge or expertise is not true.
• Transcriptionists who have used SRT before complain about the lack of quality, immense variability, and the tedious implementation process with SRT programs currently available on the market.

The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) recently announced their new partnership with Personify association management software (AMS).  The AMS system allows companies to store data such as member names and addresses on their websites.  The upgrade will allow AHDI to better track its data and improve its online store. 

Along with a new homepage, there will be several exciting features to the website.  Innovations such as breadcrumbs, which allow users to easily navigate through a website, will be installed.  The online shopping cart will be easier to use and include the widely popular ‘wish list’ feature commonly seen on other retail stores’ websites. 

While excited for the upcoming switch, AHDI cautions its members that it will take time to get the site up and running.  Therefore, the site will not be available from July1-9.  The website will still be able to be viewed, but order requests and purchase processing will be disabled.  Members can feel free to call AHDI at 1-800-982-2182 if they are in need of these services between the blackout dates.

Click here on July 10 to view AHDI’s new website: Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI)

The recent partnership of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) and the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) has the medical transcription industry excited.  While the joint venture began two years ago, both organizations are now committed to solving some of the industry’s most grueling challenges.  The goals of the partnership are to create and implement industry standards and improve the quality of service across all companies.

MTSOs and documentation specialists are starting to work together to try to increase turnaround times and better manage data.  AHDI and MTIA want to compile research to establish uniform turnaround time guidelines.  With these guidelines in place, medical practices could pay premiums to medical transcription services that provide faster turnaround times.  The hope is that these new guidelines will increase the quality of the medical transcription industry.

A quality assurance (QA) program is also in the works, which would monitor documentation accuracy and vastly improve transcription performance.  The QA program, along with outlining document formatting standards across the industry, would also improve patient safety.

In addition, the two organizations want to continue educating medical transcription business owners on the privacy and security protections to prevent medical transcription service owners from having to pay fines for violating patients’ rights to privacy.

Lastly, the two partners intend to invest in speech recognition technology to bring the industry into the future of efficient transcription.  At the 2009 MTIA Annual Conference industry stakeholders got together to review data collected about the incorporation of a speech recognition system.

In just two short years, AHDI and MTIA have taken big steps toward innovation.  Instead of waiting for these advancements to happen naturally, the two organizations have taken on the challenges of improving transcription by themselves.  They are making drastic improvements and the medical transcription industry will soon see the impacts of their hard work.