Moving with the times

From a non-descript village in the coastal area of the State a group of youths who passed Intermediate prepare reports for doctors across the world. Sitting in the calm environs of the village they are revolutionising the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry where the big guns are talking about starting operations in tier-I and tier-II cities to cut costs.

The rural BPO set up by an enterprising entrepreneur Ramakrishna Tummala in Kavur village of Guntur district with a workforce of just 30 people – all drawn from the village -- has not only slashed the costs by nearly 60 per cent but has also fulfilled his ambition of serving his birthplace.

Read the article in The Hindu here.

The Future of Medical Transcription - An Open Forum

IAMR, the industry body for medical transcription companies, organized a seminar on the Future of Medical Transcription at PGRRCDE Auditorium, Osmania University on Monday, October 6, 2008. The seminar was aimed at providing an open forum to MT professionals to discuss issues of common concern to the industry.

More than 190 MT professionals from seven of the leading companies attended the seminar. The keynote presentation from Raghu Vasu, CEO of Transdyne threw light on recent trends in the healthcare and healthcare documentation industry, emerging technologies, best practices, and highlighted the challenges facing both the business and the professionals and outlined appropriate responses. This was followed by an open forum where a panel of CEOs consisting of Mrs. Vijay Kumar of Vision 2K, Pydah Venkateswar Rao of Vasavi Prosoft, Raghu Vasu of Transdyne and Ramakrishna Tummala of Worldtech answered questions from the participants on a wide range of topics, such as the fluctuating dollar rate, new technologies, how to assess an employer, lack of awareness among the common people regarding MT as a serious career choice, etc.

At a time when downsizing and pink slips are the order of the day, the MT industry is seeing a resurgence with the consolidation and convergence of tried and tested business models resulting in growing business volumes and demand. This increased demand often also results in unwise responses at all levels. With this seminar, CEOs of the leading companies came forward to share their knowledge, expertise and perspectives in an open forum with MT professionals to dispel myths and create a positive understanding.

In view of the tremendous response to this seminar, it was suggested that IAMR could take this seminar to member companies so that all associates can benefit from it.

The morning session was followed by an afternoon of fun and games, conducted by Rajesh of Accentia and Harika of Vasavi Prosoft. The winners of the contests are listed below.


Bindi contest: Sravanti (Accentia)
Kiss the miss: Santosh Kumar (Accentia)
Clips contest: Janardan (Vasavi)
Balloon war: Sultana (Transdyne)
Balloon blowing: Balwant (Accentia) for quality
Ravi (Worldtech) and Safiya (Trandyne) for productivity
Singing: Manjula (Transdyne), Rebecca (Transdyne), Pooja (Worldtech), Yuvraj (Worldtech)

IAMR was formed by all the leading companies in July 2002 under the stewardship of Worldtech, Transdyne, Elico, Vasavi Prosoft, VasantScribe (now Accentia Tech), and CKAR, and nearly 20 other charter members, with the following objectives.

1. Representational. Help member companies take up policy and infrastructure related issues with government agencies and decision making bodies in one voice.
2. Networking. Create opportunities for networking within the industry through events and conferences
3. Educational. Make comprehensive industry-specific information available to members.
4. Promotional. Promote India as preferred MT and Healthcare services destination. Create awareness in media (local and international) regarding MT as a viable career pursuit and India as an attractive offshore MT destination.

IAMR has represented the industry at forums addressing labor laws, infrastructure requirements, provision for better bandwidth and power availability and tariffs, and education.

IAMR meets regularly to share best practices, industry trends, vendor information, etc. It also organizes conferences on subjects of relevance to the industry, both at the managerial and employee level. Some of the events organized by IAMR include seminars on Yoga at the Workplace, Change Management, Strategies for fluctuating forex, Career Destination with AAMT Director, Peter Preziosi, etc.

IAMR has worked through agencies like the Board of Intermediate Education, the AP State Council for Higher Education, Doctus, Osmania University and Nizams College to design and execute MT training modules at the junior college and degree college levels.

More details regarding IAMR can be found at their website iamr.org.in.

Rural BPO initiative in Andhra Pradesh

With over 500 on-site employees, Worldtech is a success story. Doctus, a company offering a wide range of services such as training, financial services, data entry, claims adjustments and processing. With more than 150 people on its staff at the Hyderabad center, and now with the Kavur operation with a targeted 200 workers within the next one year, Doctus and Worldtech are contributing to reverse the trend of people migrating to the cities, thereby reviving the cultural and economic life-force of the villages.

Read the Full Story Here.

Most common first and last names

Here is an (two text files below) excellent names database that I found on MTIndia (Amit's pioneering community forum) a long time back. It lists names, with incidence, and with gender. A must have for any MT.


firstnames.txt

lastnames.txt

Intermediate Student Interns with Worldtech

Worldtech, as part of its ongoing commitment to further the cause of medical transcription training through government institutions, recently concluded a two month internship program for students of the medical transcription program run by the Intermediate Board of Education at St. Josephs Junior College, Cudappah, and Husaini Alam Girls College at Hyderabad. A total of 19 students were given the chance work as interns in a real production unit, an opportunity that no other training program can offer. At the end of the internship, certificates were awarded, and arrangements were made for the successful interns to be given finishing school exposure through a leading training company, so that they could be made ready for placement at various companies.

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