Healthcare documentation or medical transcription is a time-saving and essential process that helps healthcare professionals in generating and maintaining accurate medical records facilitating them in providing quality healthcare to scores of ailing people. Healthcare documentation works through the process of dictating and recording important notes, collecting patient information and securely transforming the recordings into a prescribed format of accurate text. Here, the role of a trained and experienced healthcare documentation specialist (medical transcriptionist) is indispensable who converts the dictated voice recordings of the physicians and other healthcare professionals into the required format of text. Since the process seems to be simple enough, several people form an opinion that medical transcriptionists do not require any specific skills or training, however, the reality is far too different where healthcare documentation jobs require good language skills, listening and typing skills along with training to understand medical terminology, human anatomy and the medical transcription process.
You must know that the healthcare documentation process works at three levels that include dictation by healthcare professionals, recording of the voice of healthcare professionals and then transcribing these recorded documents by the medical transcriptionists. This is a simple process, yet requires a high level of quality check to ensure that the transcribed reports are accurate and provide the right information to the people using them. For high-quality medical transcription records, the first two steps should be as flawless as the third step, wherein physicians and other healthcare professionals must speak clearly and use a high-quality digital recording device to capture clear and easy-to-transcribe audio records. Further, to offer the quick and the best transcription reports of high accuracy levels, healthcare documentation specialists must follow these guidelines.
- Set the right tools: You must ensure that all the necessary tools and equipment are set and are handy for use. These include –
- Comfortable workstation: If you work in a healthcare facility or healthcare documentation companies at the office, you need not worry about the workstation because the office provides you with that. However, if you work from home, medical transcription can be either taken up as a full-time job or freelancing work, you must make sure that you have a comfortable chair and table to set up your workstation. Without a good chair that supports your lower back and a desk to place your computer and other peripherals that help you maintain a good posture, you won’t be able to work for long hours, affecting your productivity and performance.
- Quality headphones: The job of a healthcare documentation specialist starts with listening to the audio files sent by physicians and healthcare providers. If you don’t have good-quality headphones, you may get distracted by surrounding noises that interfere with your listening and comprehending skills which eventually affect your transcription skills.
- Foot pedal: To further facilitate your listening skills, you must have a foot pedal that helps you in controlling dictation playback with your toes.
- Reference material: Keep the dictionaries and other physical manuals given by your employer handy for reference. Further, you must also bookmark all the essential websites online, in case you need help in searching for unfamiliar words.
- Type the text: Listen to the audio files that have been assigned to you or uploaded to the secure server and type whatever you hear and comprehend in the first instance after listening to the entire file once. For any unclear or incomplete files, you must communicate with your seniors or directly with the healthcare professionals who dictated the file to complete the transcription report.
- Edit the transcript: Once you are done with the transcription totally, proofread and edit the report to rectify any errors or inconsistencies and ensure the highest levels of accuracy and make the report shareable.
If you follow the above guidelines and focus on giving accurate transcription reports, you can certainly complete healthcare documentation quickly and share the reports with healthcare providers. To get the best training and support from seniors for a flourishing medical transcription career, join the best healthcare documentation company.