Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Medical transcription outsourcing: Minimizing the roadblocks to EMR/ EHR adoption

As healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals have started the process of adopting EMR/ EHR it has become obvious that for the goals of the adoption of this technology, like improved patient care and decreased healthcare costs to be attained, there needs to be more support.  Moreover the adoption of EMR/ EHR has many roadblocks that have hindered the process. The emerging scenario has made it clear that road to adoption of EMR/ EHR needs to consider options other than mere point & click templates or front-end speech recognition software to ensure seamless adoption.

Medical transcription – the process of creating patient medical records converting the dictation of healthcare professionals to text format can aid healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals adopt EMR/ EHR by making the transition smooth by removing the roadblocks. Further more outsourcing medical transcription has the added advantage of ensuring continuous, expert and efficient support for varying volumes of transcription while ensuring technology support, HIPAA & HITECH compliance and savings on cost.

What are the roadblocks to EMR/ EHR adoption and how does outsourcing medical transcription help in overcoming them?

Roadblock 1

Lack of narrative: One of the main roadblocks towards adoption of EMR/ EHR has been that the creation of patient medical records using point and click templates has lead to information that lacks the detailed narrative. Using medical transcription services for the creation of patient medical records ensure that the narrative portion of the patient medical record is included. This information can be invaluable not only for the care process but also for receivables and risk management.

Roadblock 2

No quality checks: The creation of patient medical records using point and click templates or using front-end speech recognition software results in patient medical records that do not have the advantage of being cross checked to minimize errors. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription company ensures that each transcript is put through a stringent quality process involving expert medical transcriptionists, proofreaders etc to ensure maximum accuracy. Medical transcription companies even provide editing and proofreading services for back-end speech recognition software to ensure accuracy levels are met with.

Roadblock 3

Hinders healthcare professionals’ productivity: Healthcare professionals are used to the dictation-to-transcription method of documenting the care process as it intuitively adjusts to the work life of healthcare professionals. However the use of point and click templates or front-end speech recognition software tends to eat into the time of healthcare professionals and hinders their productivity substantially. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription company ensures that healthcare professionals have the advantage of their preferred and familiar method of dictation-to-transcription for documenting the care process while offering various options for EMR/ EHR adoption.

Roadblock 4

Leads to patient dissatisfaction: Another major roadblock to the adoption outsourcing EMR/ EHR is the patient dissatisfaction with this method as this method takes the focus of healthcare professionals away from patients onto the documentation process. This tends to dilute the comfort of the healthcare professionals’ “bedside manner” from the care process, leaving patient unhappy. Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional ensures that the healthcare professional is left free to focus on the patient throughout the care process by offering various options for dictation and subsequent adoption of EMR/ EHR without changing the working style of healthcare professionals.

It can be seen that outsourcing medical transcription helps healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities overcome the roadblocks to EMR/ EHR adoption.

Solutions offered by medical transcription companies for adoption of EMR/ EHR: Medical transcription companies are experts at adapting services, processes and technology to meet the changing needs of the healthcare sector. This expertise enables them to aid in the process of adopting EMR/ EHR with services like structured dictation, structured transcription, discrete reportable transcription and HL7 interface. Using medical transcription services for EMR/ EHR adoption has the further advantage of allowing healthcare professionals to retain the narrative portion as part of the patient medical record and maximizing productivity of healthcare professionals by allowing them to focus on patients rather than on the documentation process.

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.

Among the software and tools offered by TransDyne for transcription, the smart delivery system has a large role to play in easing the path to EMR/EHR adoption The Smart Delivery system, which has features like User defined folder paths to enable easy imports to EMR systems is the suggested mode of document delivery where pre-defined file saving would help import documents to EMR systems.  Apart from this TransDyne also offers discounted rates for those healthcare facilities that provide demographic data entered in the EMR rather than through other modes.

Along with medical transcription services involving multiple level quality checks to ensure accuracy, the use of the right technology for ease of use, turnaround time and security, at reasonable rates, TransDyne also provides discrete reportable transcription for adoption of EMR/ EHR.

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




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