Medical Transcription
Medical transcription, also known as MT, is the process of
accurate and quick conversion into written form, the dictation by the
doctors and others, regarding the patient
assessment, in order to document patient care and facilitate healthcare
services. This dictation covers everything that takes place between the
physician and the patient. It
involves receiving dictation on physical reports, diagnosis,
consultation notes, clinical course, psychiatric evaluations, x-ray
reports etc. Medical transcription is the primary
mechanism by which hospitals and other medical professionals communicate
patient record information with other physicians, insurance companies,
etc.
The need for medical transcription has evolved due to many reasons.
Maintaining prescribed medical records is mandatory in some of the
western countries like U.S. The
fact that the lawsuits and medical insurance claims are decided on the
patients’ medical history makes documentation more necessary. Further
doctors are frequently
invited to deliver lectures at medical colleges. Doctors usually give
extensive notes, on the case studies and their medical experiences, to
students participating in the
lectures. The inability of the harried doctors or health care services
to sit and write those reports themselves has made medical transcription
hold a vital link in health care
industry. So, what does a stressed physician do? He or she simply speaks
into a tape-recorder or make use of voice recording software on the PCs.
This process of
recording is faster and can be done even while walking from one ward to
another. These audio files or tapes are then forwarded to a company that
gives them texts in clean,
perfect English for filing and reference. This is what medical
transcriptions are all about.
Optimum utilization of accessories like computers, printers and variety
of word-processing systems, digital system or voice file, earphones, a
foot pedal etc is done for
medical transcriptions. Medical transcription follows prearranged and
conventional document format and is highly dependent upon trained
professionals, known as medical
transcriptionists. Even a miss-spelt word can cost to someone’s life.
Thus, a medical transcriptionist should possess good listening and
language skills, computer skills and
knowledge of medical terms. This ensures swift transcription of recorded
audio into electronic data which is further examined for grammar and
clarity by a proofreader.
A medical transcriptionist does not require any advanced educational
qualifications or a massive of capital to get started in practice,
unlike doctors or lawyers. However, it
requires a high degree of training and dedication. Students can take
online training via internet, comfortably from their homes, and receive
the same amount of knowledge
that they might find in a traditional school. On-the-job experience has
also proved beneficial to the medical transcriptionists, especially by
handing records from a wide
variety of medical specialists.
Medical transcription is one of the booming IT enabled service. It
serves client hospitals throughout the nation and abroad. It is an
interesting and challenging career that is
attracting a large population of educated English speaking people. With
the rapid change of outlook in healthcare and privatization of the
insurance sector, documentation of
all patient records will become mandatory for all the countries, which
will increase medical transcription jobs in future.
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