Medical Transcriptionist

D

dimpy.handa

Dimpy Handa
Medical Transcription is one of the fastest growing fields in health care. Medical Transcriptionists are in demand in Western countries especially in the US where the entire healthcare industry is based on insurance and detailed medical records are needed for processing insurance claims. Medical transcription could be one of the speedy growing IT enabled service in India also, with the rapid change in the outlook in Indian healthcare and privatization of the insurance sector. India provides an ideal location for conducting medical transcription with the large population of educated English speaking people and the comparative low cost which encourages companies abroad to outsource their work to the Indian Medical Transcription field
 
Presently, transcriptionists are transmitted dictation from physicians by means of digital or analog dictating equipment. An increasing common way for transmitting documentation is through the Internet. This is convenient for transcriptionists because they can receive and return dictation immediately through the Internet, allowing for quick client approval. An additional trend is being used called speech recognition technology. This creates drafts of reports by electronically translating sounds into text is. It is then necessary to edit the reports for punctuation, grammar and errors in translation; format the reports; and ensure reports are medically reliable. Speech recognition technology is usually used by transcriptionists working in areas with regular terminology, such as radiology or pathology. Nevertheless, as technology becomes more advanced, speech recognition technology will become even more popular.
 
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).
 
It flows from the need for documentation of medical records and the inability of hard-pressed doctors to sit and write those reports themselves. In Western countries, particularly the US, maintaining extensive medical records is mandatory-and vital-for each patient treated. The fact that medical insurance claims and lawsuits are decided on the documented case history makes this all the more necessary. Further, doctors are frequently invited to deliver lectures at medical colleges. This implies preparing extensive notes on case studies to be handed out to participating students.
 
In India, there was a boom in this industry couple of years back with a lot of companies and training institutes entering this field. Most companies except a few could not survive due to lack of proper training and understanding of this comparatively new concept in India. By improving the work standards and quality of service, India has a wide scope for capturing the huge clientele in the US and provide employment opportunities to the huge mass of English speaking and computer literate people in the country. The success of the surviving companies proves that Medical transcription can hold a vital link in altering the Indian job scenario
 
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