Word Autocorrect Exporter and Backup

Here is an utility that I used years ago to backup and transport my MSWord autocorrect entries. It was a pleasure to find it still in circulation, and with a new version too, and to know that it still works with current versions of Word. I am sure transcriptionists out there who are not aware of this will find it a handy tool.

See here for the developer site and download link.

Careers in Medical Transcription

The boom in the Medical Transcription industry has resulted in higher demand for trained MTs. DOCTUS has trained more than 300 MTs in 2007 and projects 600 graduates in 2008. With a fresh batch starting on the first of every month, one has to wait no longer to get started in the program.

Click here for more details.

Acing the Interview

Here is a slideshow on mastering the interview written with the Medical Transcription industry in mind. Enjoy.

Worldtech: Where Quality Transcription Lives

Worldtech offers its customers transcription services of the highest quality. The quality process that has evolved over the 10 years of its operations is stringent and demanding. All transcripts go through multiple levels of audit until it is approved for lesser levels of audit. A random sampling is done of all the work during and after the production cycle. This serves both as quality control as well as training and feedback.

Every transcript is graded by the quality control team, following a grading policy created by the quality control team which is based on the guidelines of AAMT (now AHDI). The accuracy of each transcript can be monitored as it goes through the levels of quality audit.

"Our greatest challenge in the initial years was quality of transcription," observes Laxmi Gupta, VP, Quality Control, "and it was only by diligent implementation of our quality control process, which has gone on to become a model for other companies in the offshore transcription business, that we have established a reputation of excellence among our customers."

Siasat Daily Seminar on Medical Transcription

The leading Urdu newspaper of Hyderabad conducted a career awareness program on Medical Transcription. Leading industry figures, trainers, and medical transcriptionists addressed the large gathering to offer an overview of Medical Transcription as a career destination.

more here

The Art of Wellness

Become a Doctus Medical Transcriptionist

DOCTUS, a team of professional trainers, has come together with the
leaders of the MT industry to offer customized and relevant training
in medical transcription. This training is offered independent of
service agreements.

From Doctus Alumni

IAMR trains trainers

For the first time in the state, the commissionerate of intermediate education, Andhra Pradesh government, and the Indian Association of Medical Records Services (IAMR) have embarked on an initiative to introduce medical transcription as a vocational course in junior colleges.

Towards this direction, the commissionerate and the IAMR had jointly organised a 15-day pilot programme for training government junior college lecturers in the state in medical transcription, which concluded here on July 29.

Twenty seven lecturers – three each from nine government colleges and minority institutions in tier-II towns – have been selected for the all-paid programme with an intention to start a six-month course in their respective colleges. read more

Proofreading Tips(u)

The correct attitude for a Medical Transcriptionist should be one of independence and responsibility for his or her work. Medical Transcriptionists function with a minimum of direct supervision. The majority do have an immediate supervisor somewhere responsible for quality control. Working as a professional Medical Transcriptionist means to take pride in the accuracy and completeness of your work. A professional gains satisfaction from a job well done.

Excellent proofreading skills are critical for a Medical Transcriptionist. Proofreading is looking for mistakes of all types in a transcribed document and correcting them. The most common errors a Medical Transcriptionist will be looking for include:

Omission of important dictated words
Selecting the wrong English or medical word
Misspelling words
Typographical errors
Grammatical errors
Punctuation errors

Proofreading skills will improve with practice. You will know what your areas of weaknesses are as you proofread and find your errors. If you find that you miss few medical words, but misspell many English words, you can improve by paying particular interest in English words as you transcribe and proofread dictation.

Consider the following four-step method to help you achieve the best results from your proofreading:

1. Look words up in reference books as you encounter them. Dont wait until the end of the report. You will have forgotten how some of the words sounded. Search until you find and dont go any further in your medical transcribing until you find the words you get stumped on. Leave a blank if you exhaust all resources and still cannot find your word.
2. Briefly proofread what you transcribe as it appears on the screen of your word processor or the paper you are typing on. This will help you catch missed words and typographical errors as they occur. Print out your reports on paper if you are using a word processor. It is easier to proofread the printed report on paper than it is on the screen.
3. If you just cannot find a word, leave a blank of an appropriate length, according to how long or short the word sounds. Attach a flag (a flag is a sheet of paper clipped to the report or a sticky note placed on the report which identifies all blanks, which lines of the report they are located on, and what the dictated word sounded like to you.
4. Use a medical or English spellchecker as the final step in proofreading. Spellcheckers will not catch errors such as transcribing no instead of not or transcribing ilium instead of ileum.

Excellent proofreading skills come only after continual practice to perfect. Consider the following tips:

To avoid omitting important dictated words adjust the speed control on the transcriber unit and transcribe slowly to assure no dictated words are overlooked. Slowly increase your speed of the tape, which will increase transcription speed as you learn to keep up with the dictator.

The tape recording (if you are transcribing from a tape) does not perfectly reproduce the human voice. Sometimes the words and phrases sound garbled or something quite different from what they really are. A Medical Transcriptionist should never transcribe what he or she thinks they hear. You should transcribe only what makes sense in the context of the report. Careful word searching and careful attention to word definitions help the Medical Transcriptionist to avoid selecting the wrong English or medical word. The wrong medical word can convey a wrong diagnosis for a patient. The error can be carried in the patients permanent medical record and cause extreme havoc and chaos. The professional Medical Transcriptionist NEVER transcribes anything that does not make sense and/or cannot be verified in a reference book. In other words, dont just make up a word either just to fill in all the blanks. It is better to leave a blank.

Misspelling of medical and English words can be avoided by careful proofreading and using a spellchecker.

Typographical errors are usually the result of carelessness or attempts to type too fast rather than focusing on accuracy. Careful proofreading will eliminate typographical errors.

Grammatical errors are hard to catch while transcribing and must be identified through careful proofreading.

Punctuation errors can actually change the medical meaning of a sentence. Keep your punctuation references within easy reach.

(from Career Advice by Randy)

IAMR efforts to bring Kolkata industry together

from the latest mtindia newsletter

Ramakrishna Tummala, President IAMR and MD Worldtech will be
meeting with industry majors at Kolkata on Sunday, June 24. He
will be in Kolkata along with his team to commemorate the 1st
anniversary of the Worldtech Center of Excellence. Mr. Tummala has
been a pioneer in the efforts to get the Indian MT industry to grow
in dialog. He formalized his efforts with the industry in
Hyderabad at a meeting in July 2002 where Dr. Amit Chatterjee, SM
of MTIndia came and shared his understanding of the need for such a
forum at local, national and international levels. IAMR was formed
with 20 leading companies. Raghu Vasu of Transdyne, Ravi Chandran
and Srinivas Manne of ElicoBPO, Subhorup Dasgupta of Worldtech,
Venkateswar Rao of Vasavi Prosoft, along with the principals of
VasantScribe, CKAR, and other leaders took IAMR forward to become
an effective and formal networking platform for the industry.

IAMR activities have included training in HIPAA compliance, career
destination seminars by Peter Preziosi, AAMT, sharing best HR
practices, sharing best training practices, evolving uniform
recruitment and recognition systems, sharing vendor data and other
relevant data, sharing technology, workshops on yoga, art of
living, personality development and ergonomics, workshops for
senior and middle management, cultural events & sports events,
seminar on hedging foreign exchange risk by Nagesh Pydah of Bank of
India.

In a telephonic interview, Mr. Ramakrishna said that the two
challenges that the Indian MT Industry faces is lack of uniform
standards and availability of trained manpower.

"The danger of poor or erratic quality of service provided is one
that would adversely affect the whole industry, most so the leading
players who invest heavily in implementation of quality policies
and processes. The industry has only recently been able to shake
off its image as a low cost but high risk (in terms of accuracy of
transcripts and security of data) offshoring destination and we
need to do all we can to prevent the India MT brand from being
tarnished." he said.

"Uniform training, certification and compensation coupled with good
HR practices are keys to successful retention. The two words every
CEO dreads are attrition and poaching. The only way out is to
increase the quality of entry level MTs and to invest in training
and retraining. In the context of a 40-rupee dollar,
non-sustainable costs need to be addressed urgently in order for
all
of us to survive and profit. Career aspirations and earnings need
to be judiciously matched to create a win-win situation for the
business as well as the workers."

for more go to http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/MTIndia/message/207

First Anniversary of Worldtech Kolkata

Worldtech Center of Excellence First Anniversary June 24, 2007

TV9 show on Medical Transcription

A feature on Telugu Satellite TV (TV9) on Medical Transcription featuring Indian MTs and MTSOs.

India Adopting Certification Standards for Transcription

New Delhi, India is now performing testing in partnership with Thomson Prometric for the RMT and CMT certifications.

In what would be one of the first instances of adoption of global certification standards for training by the BPO industry in India, American Association of Medical Transcription (AAMT) and American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), are together launching two certification exams — the Registered Medical Transcriptionist (RMT) and the Certified Medical Transcriptionist (CMT) here.

BPO boys may have to attend classes - Indiatimes Infotech

Philippines Catching up with India?

Michael Russell recently wrote about how the Philippines is catching up with India in a lot of the business process outsourcing (BPO) happening today.

While the Philippines may not be as a huge an offshore provider of web and software services as India, it holds great promise in the customer service industry. Although India does charge lower than the Philippinesfor data encoding work, India charges around $4 (U.S.) versus $10 in the Philippinesmore multinationals are choosing the Philippines because of the high quality of work. Moreover, Filipinos make good customer service agents not only because they are fluent in American English but also because of their helpful and friendly nature.

Transcription Guide : Philippines Catching up with India in the Outsourcing Industry

Spheris Receives Top Award for Medical Transcription at 2006 TEPR

From the article at Yahoo News:

Spheris this week received 'first honors' in the medical transcription category at the 2006 Towards the Electronic Patient Record (TEPR) Awards. The awards were announced May 22 at the TEPR Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Nearly 200 healthcare companies from the United States and Canada exhibit at the conference every year.

Spheris Receives Top Award for Medical Transcription at 2006 TEPR Convention: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

MTSOs on the rise?

According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO of ValueNotes, the medical transcription outsourcing industry is once again on the rise after a slump in 2000.

As per the Report “The US Medical Transcription Industry: Perspective on Outsourcing and Offshoring” the latest release by ValueNotes, medical transcription offshoring from India currently generates US$195 million in revenues; and is expected to reach US$647 million by 2010.

Silent Revival: Medical Transcription Back into The Ramp-up Game

View from India (Part II)

The MT Industry in India has come of age and is now ready for growth. It currently employs around 20-30,000 people. The size of the business generated by the MT industry annually in India is estimated at $250 million that is a fraction of the global MT industry's business volume of $12 billion. In India, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi are prominent centres for the MT industry but now the business is seen shifting to smaller cities too

MT Industry in India Poised for Growth

Is Outsourcing Your Transcription Right For You?

Here's a great article written by Robbi Hess for For The Record Magazine about deciding whether outsourcing would be beneficial for you. Robbi takes you from the reasons to outsource all the way to implementing and planning.

Whether an organization begins investigating outsourcing as a way to handle overflow, balance staffing needs, centralize transcription services, or as a cost-savings measure, outsourcing can be a great solution when medical transcription volumes vary. Outsourcing allows the HIM director to minimize the staff’s idle time during slow periods, avoid stress and overtime during peak periods, tackle seasonal fluctuations, and account for vacation coverage.

May 1 2006 issue of For The Record

WorldTech chooses Dragon MT for Back-End Platform

Worldtech today decided to use the Dragon platform for their workflow.

Worldtech USA, a leader in Business Process Outsourcing specializing in Medical Transcription Services and Electronic Medical Records, today announced the decision to utilize the Dragon MT Workflow System for its primary backend platform for transcription workflow, speech recognition, and reporting interface.

WorldTech chooses Dragon MT for Back-End Platform

MxSecure Names new Client Services Director

MxSecure, Inc., the nation’s leading provider of medical transcription services to health care clinics, today announced the addition of a Director of Client Services to its senior management team. Bonnie Crow joins MxSecure in this newly created position and will be responsible for the company’s customer care and client implementation functions.

MxSecure, Inc., Provider of Medical Transcription, Names Bonnie Crow as Director of Client Services