Medical transcription services: Why is it important?

Medical transcription has been a part of the healthcare process creating patient records by converting the dictation of the patient- healthcare professional encounter into text format. Medical transcription services have adapted themselves to the changing needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities adopting newer processes and technology. The role of medical transcription has expanded from that of merely being a typing service to being an important part of health information management.

In recent times there have been many doubts about the need for medical transcription services due to the advent of technology like speech recognition and EMR. In spite of these developments the importance of the role played by medical transcription is undeniable.

Given below are some of the reasons that highlight the importance of medical transcription services:

• The basis of the healthcare process is the sanctity of the patient- healthcare professional relationship. Medical transcription helps preserve this by letting the healthcare professional concentrate on the treatment process:  allowing him to dictate his/her notes using flexible modes of dictation, instead of capturing the information at the point of care by entering the data themselves.

• Quality healthcare requires a quality patient record capturing the narrative of the patient complaint along with all the details. Medical transcription helps in this by capturing all the details of the patient complaint, along with the background information provided by the patient as accurately as possible

• Detailed patient records improve the communication between healthcare professionals. This is very useful when the patient has to be referred to a specialist for further treatment/ tests/ procedures.

• Medical transcription ensures that all the details of the patient encounter including treatment history are captured accurately. This acts as a valuable evidence in case of litigation

• Medical transcription encourages dictation as a means of capturing the entire patient- healthcare professional encounter. The process of narrating the encounter helps in the diagnostic process.

• Medical transcription creates patient records with maximum details ensuring that the healthcare professional has a reference for future patient visits.

• The medical transcription process creates transcripts capturing maximum details with accuracy and speed. Speedy medical transcription speeds up the reimbursement process and accurately capturing the details supports the claim for payment.

Medical transcription has an important role to play in the healthcare process whether it is by creating patient records from the dictation provided by healthcare professionals, or by providing editing facilities for speech recognition transcribed transcripts or adopting EMR through HL7 interface.

Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be the most effective, efficient and economical fix to ensure accurate, speedy, secure and cost effective creation of patient records.

The expertise of the medical transcription service provider needs to be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Team: Quality medical transcription requires the right team to ensure accuracy and turnaround time. The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be evaluated on the basis of their recruiting and training processes. This would ensure that the service provider has a pool of manpower to draw from as per the transcription requirements

• Process: The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be judged by the processes in place to ensure accuracy, turnaround time and security. A service provider with the right expertise would ensure that none of the criteria for quality medical transcription are compromised by having the correct process in place.

• Technology: The expertise of the medical transcription service provider can be evaluated based on the technology used by them to ensure speedy and secure medical transcription services. The technology used by the service provider would ensure maximum benefits with ease of use.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has the relevant experience and expertise to provide immaculate medical transcription services. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, executed by experienced and qualified medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!               

To avail outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.