Friday, June 1, 2012

Some facts about how medical transcription aids in EMR/ EHR adoption

The recent mandate for adoption of EMR/ EHR has had healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals looking for easy and cost effective means of adopting EMR/ EHR and achieving meaningful use.  To this end various technologies have been introduced, which have provided healthcare professionals with various options like the direct entry into the EMR/ EHR using point and click templates or the use of front-end speech recognition software to populate the EMR/ EHR with data.

In spite of advantages like speed and immediacy of documentation, these methods could hinder the actual care process. Documenting the care process using these methods takes away the focus of the healthcare professionals from the patients on to the computer monitor and the quality of documentation does not capture all the nuances of the diagnostic process.

Medical transcription, the process of converting dictation of the healthcare professionals regarding the patient encounter into text format, has been a service that has been aiding healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities document the care process in its entirety. As a service that has evolved to meet the evolving needs of the healthcare sector, medical transcription is in a unique position to aid in the process of adopting EMR/ EHR. Apart from their vast experience, the medical transcription sector also has vast resources in the form of expertise in developing the right processes for quality and security, skilled medical transcriptionists who can deliver quality transcription on time and technology that can ease the entire process for healthcare professionals without compromising on cost and security.

Given the unique experience and expertise of the medical transcription sector, medical transcription services can aid in the process for adoption of EMR/ EHR by providing services that include:

Structured dictation: Structured dictation is a unique form of dictation where the healthcare professional is taken through a pattern of dictating using an interactive voice menu, which prompts healthcare professionals to dictate in a particular manner. This ensures that the report is transcribed in the manner required ensuring capture of information that is complete, precise, standard, accurate and easy to share. This ensures that the data can be parsed into the EMR/ EHR.

Structured transcription: Structured transcription ensures that the process of transcription follows a standardized pattern so that the discrete data elements from the patient medical record can easily be parsed onto the right fields in the EMR/ EHR. The use of HL7 interface for adopting EMR/ EHR has ensured that transcription can be retained for accuracy without hindering the interaction of healthcare professionals with patients.

Discrete reportable transcription: Discrete reportable transcription can be defined as a unique approach to adoption of EMR/ EHR, which continues to use the traditional method of transcription to create transcripts while instantly populating the EMR/ EHR with discrete data elements. Under this method once the healthcare professional has finished dictating his/her notes, transcripts are created through the usual transcription process using expert medical transcriptionists who ensure accuracy and speed.  After transcription, the transcription software automatically tags the discrete data within the document, such as lab values and medications into the appropriate fields in the EMR/ EHR, using XML coding.

Editing for speech recognition software: The use of backend speech recognition software for adopting EMR/ EHR has the advantage of quality editing and proofreading by medical transcriptionists to ensure accuracy. Medical transcription companies provide this service to ensure that qualified medical transcriptionists validate the draft produced by the software from the dictation of healthcare professionals in terms of accuracy and quality of information.

It can be concluded that outsourcing medical transcription to a professional medical transcription company can aid in easy adoption of EMR/ EHR with benefits like better interaction between healthcare professionals & patients, reasonable costs, quality information, turnaround time and security.

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

No comments:

Post a Comment