Medical Transcription - The Gold Mine

While EHRs are going in rapidly across the country, it's important to remember that the demand for value in reducing costs, improving patient safety and providing access to more Americans still leads the charge when it comes to why we move to electronic systems in health care. One of the best ways to enhance the value in EHR systems data mining and research is to keep a robust, detailed record of each individual patient who has a unique history unlike any other. Medical transcription/editing captures details provided by clinicians that are crisp and precise filled with data and information that can get us to the goal of improved patient outcomes through the application of secondary healthcare data. There are a number of reporting agencies that are making results available to anyone who is interested in taking a look. Organizations like the Leapfrog Group, Health Grades, Bridges to Excellence along with a score of others, provide information on various diseases and outcomes. Some secondary data use reporting is required such as core measures reporting. And when I say required, I mean that there is a 2% penalty in market-basket outcomes if you choose not to report. It is probably reasonable to anticipate that the number of hospitals reporting outcomes and the agencies to which they report will also increase. This is why it is a key fundamental and logical approach that the use of dictation and medical transcription or medical editing with speech recognition tools will be the best way to capture these necessary details and be able to produce content-rich results when reporting outcomes to continuously improve care. Nine of 10 Healthcare executives agree in a survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) that secondary use of health information will significantly improve the quality of care and that those benefits will improve in the future. A clear two/thirds anticipate a huge increase within the coming two years. (1) Consider the AMIA findings of the gains that can be made from the expansion of knowledge about diseases, treatments and make strides in public health along with advances in privacy and security. (2) There is much to be gained as we move into this era of using secondary data to advance healthcare and this can best be achieved if we continue to capture the details provided by clinicians through the dictation and interpretation process. The outcomes, however, will only be as good as the content from which the information comes - that's why dictated/transcribed reports are a gold mine of information. To in any way short-cut details will severely limit the wide-range of benefits.