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An Overview Of Medical Transcription |
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Written by Webmaster
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Thursday, 15 January 2009 |
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By Art Gib
 A medical transcriptionist is a vital part of any doctor's team. Transcription duties may be performed in the office itself, at a special department set aside in a hospital, or may be outsourced to a reputable company which specializes in providing excellent service. It is the responsibility of a transcriptionist and the doctor to make sure a patient's records are up to date and accurate.
Physicians are busy professionals, and can't possibly keep written track of the large numbers of patients they are responsible for.
After meeting with a patient, the doctor will make a vocal record of what occurred during the visit, conditions noted, course of treatment agreed upon, medicines prescribed, and anything else related to the person's physical condition. This oral record is then transferred into the care of a medical transcriptionist, whose job it is to make sure that the doctor's information is formatted into the proper report. These reports can either be hard copies or electronic.
Besides keeping patient records for his own use, a transcribed document makes it easy for a doctor to transfer digitally archived
information to a specialist or hospital that may have an urgent need to see specific data as quickly as possible.
Before the computer age, transcription was a much slower process. All data had to be typed on typewriters and hard copies were stored in file cabinets. Times sure have changed! Today, modern technologies have turned transcription into a lean, mean record keeping machine.
Voice recognition system software is the newest way for a doctor's words to be transferred directly to a document. A transcriptionist's job in this case is to edit and make sure the computer "heard" the information correctly. Some venues rely strictly on this kind of transcribing, but most use a combination of VRS and legwork by the transcriptionist herself. No machine has been able to take the place of a skilled person in this highly specialized field.
Doctors are ultimately responsible for what is contained in their patients' transcripts. Improperly transcribed records could result in disastrous consequences for the patient and opens up the physician to malpractice suits.
Any medical practice or large health care such as a hospital should have quality assurance safeguards in place to check for errors and help ensure maximum accuracy. If a facility chooses to outsource this important service, make sure to choose an organization which uses the latest in professional technology and has a reputation for excellent service.
Good medical transcription helps keep doctors organized, patients safe, and supports the most reliable transfer of vital data from one place to another.
For more information about quality medical transcription services and software, contact the professionals at Oracle Transcription, Inc (http://oracleti.com/). Art Gib is a freelance writer.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 January 2009 )
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