Medical Transcription, simply putting it is typing out a recorded voice message of a doctor. These medical records are necessary for communication between health care professionals, to aid and advance the science of medicine and to comply with laws and serve in support of an insurance claim.

A step by step procedure of Medical transcription:

• Doctors in the US speak into a voice recorder, dictating their patient's medical report
• His voice goes to a central computer
• The voice is converted into digital signals, which are beamed up to a communication satellite
• Data received from the satellite is transcribed into written form in India
• Transcribed reports are bounced back to US as digital signals via satellite
• After being processed by the central computer again the data reaches the doctors' table the next morning as a printed report

Why India for Medical transcription?
India is among the prime countries into medical transcription, mainly because:

• The time difference between US and India, (around 12 hours) which enables doctors in US to get reports by the time they get back to work next day
• Labor is economically viable & efficiency is high

Scope of Medical transcription
Based on a study by NASSCOM the employment generated by Medical transcription in the years 1997/98 was around 2,500. The revenue generated by medical transcription was Rs. 75 crores.By the years 2007-08 the employment created by medical transcription is projected to reach an astonishing 1,70,000 and the revenue generated by medical transcription would cross Rs. 9,000 crores!!!

Medical transcription is likely to be the fourth highest foreign exchange earner for India after garments, diamonds and software.

Communication
Leased 256k from EMMTEL ISP, ISDN, Dial up (backup)

Process
The dictations in DSS (Digital Dictaphone) format or after conversion to vox files are uploaded to designated folders in the server at the client’s end. The client may manage this server. However Drish also has server space for one of its clients. These are downloaded by Drish, transcribed, put through editing, proofreading, and format/template verification and uploaded in MS-Word format.

At present Drish is doing both types of dictations, Clinical as well as Hospital dictation.

Under Hospital dictation the following types of work type are included

• Operative report
• Discharge summary
• History and physical
• Consultation

Under Clinical dictation the following types of Work Types are included

• Emergency room note
• Adult medicine
• Convenient care
• Discharge summary
• Allergy
• Geriatrics
• Nephrology
• OB/Reproductive medicine
• Cosmetic Surgery
• Family practice
• Rectal surgery

Drish has handled 100 reports a day for a Dental clinic also.

The length of the dictation varies from 1minute to 40 minutes

For support from the hospital/clinic we get

• Hospital information
• Template, which includes
  Space for ID number
  Patient's Mr#
  Patient Name
  Dictator
  Date of Dictation, Transcription etc
• Standards - These are sets of standard dictations of a particular doctor. These help us in understanding the accent of that doctor and his style of dictation.