Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Medical transcription: Multiple reviews ensuring quality

Over time there have been many changes in the way the healthcare process is documented but one thing that remains constant is the need to ensure that the quality of information captured in patient medical records is the highest possible being accurate and complete. There are many methods of documenting the care process, especially with the technological advances that have taken place in the past decade. However medical transcription has always been one of the most preferred methods of documenting the care process. There are many reasons for this, some of which are:

• Healthcare professionals’ preference
• Intuitively fits into the healthcare facility’s operations
• Offers more choices in terms of modes of dictation, modes of delivery etc
• Is easy to use
• Expertise and experience of medical transcription companies in providing transcription services
• Savings on cost
• Adapts to latest technological developments like speech recognition software, EMR/ EHR.

One of the other major reasons for the popularity of medical transcription services is that they ensure a high percentage of accuracy and offer turnaround time options that suit the requirements of healthcare professionals.

Medical transcription companies ensure high quality of information in patient medical records using procedures that permeate every level of the transcription process ensuring quality.

Some of the steps taken by medical transcription companies to ensure quality are:

Training: The quality of transcription is largely dependent on the caliber of the medical transcriptionists working on it. Medical transcription companies ensure that not only are medical transcriptionists educated on the specifics of the specialty they are transcribing in, to develop their aptitude but they are also encouraged to develop an attitude for perfection. This encourages medical transcriptionists to strive and deliver accurate patient medical records within the specified turnaround time.

Providing the right research and reference tools: As healthcare is a vast and diverse field, which is constantly evolving; it is important to not only educate medical transcriptionists but also provide them with the resources for research and reference.

Transcription process: The actual transcription process also has a definite impact on the quality. It is important to ensure that the process of transcription takes place in a safe, controlled environment by specialty trained medical transcriptionists under constant supervision. Supervision in transcription is not only important to ensure quality and turnaround time but is also vital to ensure HIPAA and HITECH compliance.

Editing and proofreading: The quality of transcription can only be ensured if each transcript can be put through multiple level quality checks. To ensure minimization of errors/ blanks/ discrepancies it is important to have more than one set of “ eyes and ears” go through the audio and text files. This ensures minimization of errors and proper language.

Retrospective reviews: Apart from multiple levels of quality checks after the transcription process it is important to review the transcripts to find out mistakes if any. These can be used as a learning tool to medical transcriptionists educating them on the errors made and the methods to avoid them in the future.

Learning from reviews: The review of transcripts can be used as a learning tool not only to establish best practices for medical transcriptionists but also to educate healthcare professionals and support staff on dictation best practices.

Reviews for speech recognition software: The importance of reviewing the information increases in case of transcripts created by speech recognition software. Medical transcription services are invaluable in ensuring that the content in these transcripts are reviewed and edited to acceptable levels. Medical transcription companies not only provide editing and proofreading services for speech recognition software but also help healthcare professionals train this software to ensure better quality.

The importance of transcription reviews at several levels cannot be overlooked in ensuring quality.

TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry has used their extensive background in information technology and their experience in serving the needs of the healthcare sector to provide affordable and integrated medical transcription solutions.

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 complete medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.

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