Quality takes a prominent place in every kind of business and it is no different in medical transcription or healthcare documentation which deals with the significant and sensitive patient information. Medical transcription is a profession where the healthcare documentation specialists also referred to as medical transcriptionists listen to the audio files dictated by physicians regarding the health details of patients who have visited them for treatment. The people in healthcare documentation jobs listen to these audio files and transcribe the information into an electronic report in a format as prescribed by the healthcare providers.
To send quality reports to the healthcare providers, accountability towards the accuracy and reliability of the reports is necessary. The medical transcriptionists and healthcare documentation companies should take all the required measures to provide flawless reports and here quality assurance plays a critical role. Let’s take a look at some of the important factors that impact the quality of a transcription report.
Training: Healthcare documentation jobs are not like any other desk job and require a certain skill set to start working and then master the job. The medical transcriptionists need to be really good in both English and Medicine languages. Hence, the training and experience of a transcriptionist vastly affect the quality and the time taken to finish a particular report.
Transcriptionist: A medical transcriptionist’s communication skills, especially, verbal skills have an immense impact on a transcription report’s quality. Inability to comprehend the dictator’s voice file and transcribing accurately is a big concern and should be identified early on. To minimize errors and improve the quality of work, the transcriptionists need to adjust the dictation speed to get voice clarity and make optimum utilization of all the medical dictionaries and reference materials to get clarity on any kind of queries and doubts.
Facilities: Apart from the training and transcriptionist, another aspect that impacts the quality of medical transcription is the facilities in an organization. Technical issues with a voice file or the equipment used can also severely impact the end-result. Medical transcription equipment requires good and regular maintenance to generate reports of high quality that need timely investigation and repair or replacement of faulty equipment.
Physician: Quality of a transcription report depends on a physician’s dictation and the ability to articulate his/her thoughts. The quality of a report may even depend on various other factors that include speed and pitch of the dictation, pronouncing numbers and words that sound similar, giving spellings of new terminology, medicines, equipment, and patient details like name and place. Physicians must dictate using an appropriate dictation system that enhances the quality of dictation.
With so many influencing factors, the quality of a transcription report is susceptible to have errors and to minimize or eliminate them it is required that a proper quality assessment process is in place. Experienced healthcare documentation companies like Avontix have a great quality assessment process in place to provide flawless reports to the healthcare providers.