How does transcription software help in maintaining medical records?

Jul 22
11:04

2012

Sharad Gaikwad

Sharad Gaikwad

  • Share this article on Facebook
  • Share this article on Twitter
  • Share this article on Linkedin

The medical transcription industry has come a long way since it first become popular in the 1960s. Medical transcription is commonly practiced in the western countries but it continues to remain a naïve concept in India.

mediaimage

Medical transcription is one of the key associated industries with medical and healthcare industry. Any new and significant growth or development in either of the industries directly impacts the other. For those who do not know,How does transcription software help in maintaining medical records? Articles medical transcription involves the use of reliable medical transcription software which is operated by skilled medical transcriptionists to convert the recorded messages of the practitioner into an easy to understand, text format.

The demand for skilled and experienced medical transcriptionists is quite high in the western countries. Like all inventions, software also needs to go through various technical changes to make things easier for qualified doctors as well as other medical professionals. In the olden days, doctors use to write the diagnosis and the treatment procedure to be followed when they attended any patient. This written would then serve as a medical record and history of the patient for future reference. In the past, doctors attended to less number of patients on a daily basis and thus they could devote sufficient time to each patient. However, today, doctors attend to numerous patients on a daily basis, making it more difficult to maintain medical records. They do not have enough time to write the case history for each patient. Also, it becomes a hassled task to store the written documents and case histories containing patient information in huge file cabinets. Thus, sensing the need for a systematic and organized way of maintaining patient history, medical transcription software was invented. The primary task of transcription software is to allow the transcriptionist to clearly understand the recorded message of the doctor so he or she can effectively convert it into text file and hand it over to the doctor for future reference.

With the invention of highly advanced transcription software, recording medical dictations has become an easy task. Medical dictations need to be stored electronically so that the doctor can access them anytime when he has to attend the patient in the future. Medical records of a patient should be maintained in a well-organized way. It is the responsibility of all health care centers, ambulatory services, hospitals and other doctors who do private practice to maintain the case history of each patient attended by them. Most doctors hire trained and highly skilled medical transcriptionists to carry out the transcription work as they are too busy to do it themselves. Medical practitioners have flexible options when it comes to paying medical transcriptionists. Even if they do not want to hire them on a full time basis, they can easily pay them on the number of reports they have prepared or the number of work hours they have put in for the transcription work.

Medical transcription software should be wisely purchased. One important feature it should have is voice recognition. Medical dictations and medical records should be preserved in a systematic way so that there is no difficulty in finding any particular individual’s case history in the future.