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In order to promote adoption of Electronic health records (EHR) across the country, the U.S. health department has taken various steps including promulgation of the HITECH Act 2009 and the PPACA 2010. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009 (ARRA) has allocated $36 billion towards implementing the “meaningful use” of EHR in 2010. ARRA aims to implement the health exchange and information system of all Americans by 2014. Faced with challenges rising out of ARRA directives, Medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) have started evolving. It has already started making efforts to form alliances to integrate with EMR and billing companies to provide quick and hassle free services to physicians. Recently The Medical Transcription Industry Association and AHDI have come out with a White paper on Adoption of Speech Recognition, emphasizing the role of medical transcription personnel (MTs) in making transition to EHRs a success. Healthcare organizations have already accepted the role of MTs in complementing the limitations of EMR and speech recognition technology (SRT). They have been able to successfully route the work translated through SRT engine to MTs for correction. This method of using back-end speech recognition (BESR) supports clinicians’ ability to dictate the narrative which is widely accepted as an effective documentation method and MTs are able to produce larger volume of output compared to the conventional transcription. Physicians Approach According to a report by the Medical Records Institute published in 2008, about 90% of healthcare documentation is achieved through dictation and transcription. Loss of productivity with structured data entry is known to be the single biggest barrier to adoption of EMR by physicians. The main reason – physicians’ reluctance to enter data into the EMR templates. They prefer that MTs do it for them. Dictation is the preferred choice of 80% of doctors. This behavior is unlikely to change if the pressure of time and efficiency continue to drive the culture of healthcare. EHR environment and Medical Transcription MTs have a major role to play in documentation and help solving ambulatory EMR adoption issues, particularly when these two activities are vital to the interoperability of EHRs in the immediate future. Today, adoption of EHR is an important goal for many healthcare organizations for improved patient care at reduced costs. Functions related to these needs require a higher level of interactivity and connectivity; and Medical transcription companies have to brace themselves up for the occasion. That calls for concerted efforts on the part of MTSOs, healthcare service providers and EMR providers working together on a common platform. If adaptability to EMR is a challenge to physicians, then the role of MTs becomes all the more relevant in taking up that challenge. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) in a brief on Speech Recognition in the Electronic Health Record has rightly pointed out that MTs are poised to evolve into clinical data, data quality, and decision support specialists. It looks like medical transcription is here to stay for years to come.
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Electronic health records, Medical transcription service, EHR environment, Medical Transcription, Speech Recognition, Medical transcription companies,
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