Sunday, May 17, 2009

Medical Transcription Industry back in action ????

It was almost a cottage industry in the 90s, only to lose steam in 2000. 

But if you thought the medical transcription (MT) industry in India is history, think again. 
Latest studies reveal that it is raring to take off yet again. And this time, the future is well chalked out. 

When it took off in the 90s, anyone with a little space and enterprise opened an unit in their living room. 

Unfortunately, the boom didn't last and hit rock bottom in 2001. The reason: Too many entrants, lack of entrepreneural skills and knowledge of industry and security issues. Many small players opted out. 

But since 2004, the sector has slowly but steadily worked its way up. Now, it generates revenues worth $195 million. The figure is expected to go upto $647 million by 2010, according to ValueNotes study. 

In fact, the study found that at present, India-based MT vendors employ around 18,000; by 2010, the numbers will go up to 52,000. A Nasscom study released last month too confirms this northward move of the Indian MT industry. It says India has 120 to 150 MT companies which earn an annual income of $220 to $240 million. 

According to experts the industry will witness further consolidation with large American MT service organizations eyeing smaller Indian offshore vendors 

Experts say there has been a systematic ramp-up and a steady flow of business from the US to India which is our largest market. 

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Fun While Doing Transcription.

Fun While Doing Transcription.

We are working in the profession of Medical Transcription and like other profession it also has highs and lows. Although this profession puts you through a lot of challenges but some times it is hilarious that you will really enjoy to work in such profession. On a day-to-day basis we deals with various doctors from different specialty, some doctors you find as interested to really work upon whereas on the other hand there are some you will find them as boring. There are certain instances that really make Medical transcription profession as a joyful profession rather than a tedious one.

One day while transcribing a report I comes across a report where doctor said “Hey, I am telling you not to touch that. Why, don’t you listen to me.” That was instruction to his son not to the MT. That became joke of the day.

In an another medical transcription report doctor dictated “The patient is 29 years of age and had more than 200 sex partners.” That become discussion topic among Medical Transcriptionists.


Sometimes what happens while dictating a report, in the background you listen to a song that you will find to your liking.

The next instance that I have experienced myself while working on a medical transcription report was simply unbelievable. While dictating a report, the doctor started talking to somebody and I thought that he might be talking to somebody in the house or in the clinic, but when the conversation finished up, the doctor was actually working with his/her the dog and giving it a bath. This really sounds very interesting to me and I shared this experience of mine with everybody.

Sometime while editing the reports in every company editors comes across the phrases that makes them laugh and at the same time they feel pity over the medical transcriptionist as they type such things that are sound and look alike. For example, “The patient was having some light snakes in the evening”, but it should be, “The patient was having some light snacks in the evening”, so these phrases really make you laugh.

One interesting case an editor can really come across while editing the reports is linked with the vital signs of the patient and in most of the cases it is related to weight of the patient as the transcriptionist some time writes the weight as 2500 pounds or like that, so that is really next to impossible as the doctor might have dictated it as 250 pounds.

In American there are different doctors from different countries throughout the world, while dictating they are really not able to speak some words in English then they dictates such words in their mother tongue, and these type of cases mostly happens with the doctor who are coming from India especially from Punjab as some time they speak certain words in their Punjabi decent that a person fails to make up what the doctor has dictated as transcriptionistor editor might be from Punjab or not.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

How Useful is Six Sigma For The Medical Transcription Businesses?

Six Sigma may have been originally devised as a quality management system for use in the manufacturing sector, but over the years it has proved so versatile that now even businesses in the services sector have started using Six Sigma to reduce errors and improve the efficiency of their existing business processes. One of the most recent additions to the list of Six Sigma beneficiaries has been the medical transcription business.

In medical transcription, the thing that often makes all the difference between success and failure is the number of errors that might have been made by a transcription company. Most of the medical transcription projects are now outsourced to third party medical transcription companies and since clients expect a very high level of performance, these companies just cannot afford to make mistakes.

This is the reason why many of these companies have now started deploying time-tested and highly-effective quality control management methodologies such as Six Sigma. To get a better understanding of how useful Six Sigma actually is for the medical transcription companies, we'll discuss some of its associated benefits.

Significant Reduction in Transcription Errors

Since lives depend on accuracy, medical transcription executives just cannot afford to make errors while converting voice messages into electronic text form. Not to mention the transcription company's losses in case the errors exceed the acceptable limits, leading to the decommissioning of the entire project. However, since transcriptionists also have to meet deadlines, it often becomes quite difficult to achieve that perfect balance of productivity and quality. This is exactly where Six Sigma comes into play.

What Six Sigma does is that it helps businesses to identify the root cause that might have been responsible for the majority of errors committed by transcriptionists. Six Sigma focuses on the majority simply because it's just not possible for a company to look into each and every error committed while transcribing. After identifying the root cause, Six Sigma helps businesses to devise effective solutions that are acceptable to both the top management officials and the transcription executives hired by the company.

This way Six Sigma is able to solve the problems without affecting the morale and motivation of the employees. 

Improved Quality Control

By combining statistical tools and techniques with advanced IT systems, Six Sigma enables transcription companies to keep an effective check over the final output. This certainly helps in improving output quality, but what is even better is that the objective is achieved without incurring huge costs. This becomes a possibility because most of the quality control systems are automated and have the capability to identify even the most difficult to detect errors and inaccuracies that might have occurred while transcribing.

Since no additional manpower is required for improving and maintaining the desired quality levels, medical transcription companies are able to make huge savings and that too without compromising on quality.

Six Sigma in the medical transcription business may be a relatively new phenomenon, but still there are many instances that prove the usefulness of Six Sigma in this highly demanding business domain. For proof, you just have to compare the "before and after" financial statements of the transcription companies that have implemented Six Sigma. You can then easily notice that the results after the implementations are far better than they were earlier. 
Article Provided By: My Articles Directory 
About the Author: Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Transcription Services: What to offer?

Transcription is a valuable service for many industries. You can find transcription services for different fields. Whether you want someone to do audio transcription of interviews, data, legal information, medical records, seminar, conference or any other recordings, a transcriptionist can get you the text you need from the audio format. Quality, accuracy and efficiency are the three essential elements of a robust and effective transcription service offering.

Transcription services now range from small, one-person home-based business to sophisticated, high-tech corporations. Fortunately, technology advances have allowed transcriptionists in one part of the country to work from home for employers located elsewhere.

Transcribers do business within a variety of industries. The following illustrates some formats that the transcriber would transcribe-

Court hearings-the coverage of court room hearings including testimonies

Board meetings/focus groups/conferences- discussion of various agendas among a group of people and their responses

Interviews-dialogues between an interviewer and an interviewee

Medical records- such as patient’s history, consultation, doctor’s advice and pathology reports

Podcasts and videos need to be transcribed and put onto the site for differently abled people.

Transcription services vendor

How can you choose which transcription service to use? Based on the following features, you can judge on your own.
1. Accuracy- A transcription service should provide the final transript, which is accurate and completely error-free. There is no room for making errors as a transcriptionist. Imagine a situation where you were transcribing for a doctor and misinterpreted a medicine! Being a transcriptionist is a serious, meticulous and deadline driven job.
2. Timeliness-A transcription service should provide high-quality final transcript with deadline in mind. Deadline is very important in transcription services.
3. Complete- Whether it is a verbatim transcription or only editing a project, finding a service that will provide a complete product is critical.
4. Cost- This can vary widely. Find out if the transcription services you are considering are billed by the hour, the line, or the job and get estimates in advance of the final cost.

A transcription service is offered at changeable rates and is carried out as freelance or full time opportunity by homemakers, professionals, technical experts and any body who is good in English and typing.
Depending on what type of transcription service you are looking for, there are several options. You can even find transcription services that are able to do translation from another language such as Spanish, Chinese, German or Indian dialects. Transcription services are high-valued businesses and have become more prevalent in many industries and individuals.









Article Provided By: My Articles Directory 
About the Author: Transcription Institute is a Transcription Service company that provides accurate and professional transcription services in various fields.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Employing Competitive Edge Technology

In medical transcription process, a physician dictates SOAP notes into recorders or into a dictation server through a telephone. These voice files are sent to a medical transcription company or to a transcriptionist to transcribe and they return a refined document of required medical information.

In Today’s competitive environment a fast paced medical service requires a fast paced medical transcription. Hence transcription service provider has to have quick turn around time.

The another differentiator is a quality and the process of controlling it. Effective records of SOAP notes, especially in the quantities supplied by medical offices, require the technological ability to not only record medical transcription but also to track it and store it.

Unlike standard transcription services, RTechMD employs digital Internet technology. And being in India is able to provide lightning-speed service at a substantial cost savings compared to standard outside transcription services, and at a fraction of the cost of employing in-house transcriptionists. 

You can access a patient/client record online, as long as you have the password for your account, you can log in to our secured Web site and download the needed information from any computer – anywhere in the world! 

Your transcribed notes can be automatically sent to your e-mail address and/or to any number of other addresses, or faxed to any specified recipient(s). 

Whichever method you use, upon receipt of your voice files, our system logs them in and uploads them to our secure Web site, where they are accessed by our expertly trained and experienced transcriptionists

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Smallpox Vaccine

Today is the anniversary of the invention of the smallpox vaccine. It was reported to be the first successful vaccine to be developed, and was invented by an English rural doctor by the name of Dr. Edward Jenner on May 14, 1796. Dr. Jenner was also the originator of the term "vaccine." 

Thanks to the amazing discovery of the smallpox vaccine, the total number of deaths in England related to this disease had dropped by two thirds within just 18 months. During that 18 months, 12,000 people had been vaccinated against the illness. Within one year, smallpox was nearly completely wiped out with the help of the World Health Organization. Thanks to Dr. Jenner's contribution to the medical field, countless lives have been saved by these vaccinations.

To learn more, please visit these links:

Thursday, July 3, 2008

RADIOLOGY TRANSCRIPTION

First of all, to understand radiology transcription, one would have to know what radiology stands for. Radiology is a word comprising of one prefix, i.e., radio- and one suffix, i.e., -logy with the former meaning "radiation" and the latter "study of any given subject".

Having said that, now we come to what radiology transcription is.

Radiology transcription jobs are a branch of Medical Transcription that specializes in patients undergoing radiology procedures. Let us elaborate.

Every day, all over the country, patients are in and out of hospitals, clinics, and urgent care centers. While there, they are given multiple tests and undergo several different procedures. Often patients are under the care of multiple people at once including nurses, specialists, and physicians.

Now keep in mind that all of this activity must be recorded in the patient’s records for future reference. It must all be combined with all of the patient’s past history and any other relevant information concerning the patient’s treatment. This is vital for two reasons.
· Number one is the health of the patient. All activity must be documented to ensure the patient is getting the best treatment possible.
· Reason number two is to protect the hospital in the case of their activities being called into question.

This is where the transcriptionist comes in. If you are looking for jobs in radiology transcription, your job will revolve around recording various activities for patients undergoing radiology treatments and procedures.

You may simply be helping keep records of ultrasounds, x-rays, and sonograms received by the patient. You may also be working on the therapy side of radiology where your transcriptionist job will include keeping records of chemotherapy and other forms of radiology treatment.

How do you know if you have what it takes to get a radiology transcription job?

Requirements

Needless to say, radiology transcription jobs require excellent knowledge of computers along with fast and accurate typing skills but that is not all. A radiology transcriptionist should also have a good working knowledge of medical terms and procedures. You will spend a great deal of time transcribing information from doctor’s recordings, and you will need to know the terms that are being used in order to ensure your record is correct.

As a radiology transcriptionist, you will also be required to have excellent grammar and spelling skills and the ability to research information in medical texts when you feel it is necessary, i.e., when a term comes up with which you are not familiar. Finally, you should be able to work independently if you are interested in a transcription job. Many transcriptionists work from home and under minimal supervision.

How to gain the necessary skills?

Most transcription jobs require previous experience in the field. Naturally, in order to get experience, you need to land the first job first and the quickest way to do that is through training via Internet or a learning center.

Keep in mind that if you are interested in radiology transcription jobs in particular, you will need to brush up on the area of interest and learn as much as possible about radiology.

The field of radiology transcription jobs is fairly competitive. Among all Medical Transcription jobs, radiology seems to attract a great deal of interest and little wonder the field of x-rays, ultrasounds, and chemotherapy is one of the most fascinating medical fields working today.