'We need to create a set of competencies for transcription professionals'

How do you see medical transcription in the light of newly
evolving technologies?

The future of medical transcription will only work if good enabling
technology help evolve the practice. We are looking at issues around speech
recognition technology, natural language processing, artificial intelligence,
and different ways of capturing handwriting. We really need to deploy these
technologies to be able to better leverage data capture in healthcare specially
as we start to see more and more institutions particularly.

What do you think of the quality of medical transcription
done out of India?

The level of quality is variable because there are no true guidelines that
people follow. It is very fragmented and isolated. We are looking at developing
private sector regulatory approaches to set standards for educational practice.
This is true when we think of exchanging health information across facilities
and across physicians who practice.

What are your views on speech recognition as a threat to the
medical transcription industry?

When you look at enabling technologies, you have also to look at the
practice patterns of how clinicians work in the healthcare facility. Many
physicians are now comfortable with the dictation that they are using now. But
there is always a need to interface with the machine but the chances of errors
are there. If you get an error in a medical record, it has impact on patient's
safety. You need to look at data exchange across facilities. That error that you
have can be propagated across facilities.

Why don't we have third party training provider in the
medical transcription in India?

We are aware that there is no such thing in India. We are looking at
engaging prospective training houses that could be endorsing our medical
transcription programs. They can partner with Thomson Prometric as well as AAMT
and set up a good training curriculum.

We are launching our level 1 medical transcription test. This
industry came up few years ago, fizzled and again there is resurgence. There was
not any method of evaluating efficiency of prospective candidates. There was no
benchmark. There were very few takers in India for certified medical
transcriptionist test because of high price points. We are trying to have an
India specific price point. This test is going to be available from September.

We got to create a set of competencies for a transcriptionist
and build that into an educational program and then in partnership with
Prometric we worked on our credential programs and evaluate the core
competencies at the knowledge Level I and the Level II the Certified Medical
Transcriptionist.

Do you see China as a threat to India as a medical
transcription offshoring destination?

That is very unlikely. I know China is putting a lot of money into
education. But countries like India and the Philippines by the virtue of their
history of English speaking have taken an edge over China.

Sudesh Prasad

sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in