Beware the "carpetbaggers" of the 21st century trying to convince you that your practice will save money by instituting their software with voice recognition (VR) technology, replacing the need for a human healthcare documentation specialist (formerly known as "medical transcriptionist).
Numerous studies recently have revealed high rates of critical errors in reports generated by VR systems versus their traditionally transcribed counterparts. While the VR reports are completed more expediently, for most of us in the healthcare industry, a report with one or more critical errors is unacceptable, not to mention dangerous to the patient and potentially damaging to the doctor/clinic's reputation.
Healthcare documentation specialists are trained not only to decipher the meaning of mumbled, garbled, warp speed dictated reports, but also to correct errors not able to be picked up by a VR program such as right versus left. With VR, what you say is what you get--whether it's right or not.
If the doctor has to have any involvement in the process other than pressing a record button and a stop button, his/her productivity suffers. Putting hands on a keyboard versus hands on a patient (so to speak) does not save the practice money; instead, it slows the doctor down.
Outsourcing transcription is the most cost effective way for a practice to handle its healthcare documentation and to ensure 100% coverage with no down time. At the very least, those who use VR programs need to have a trained healthcare documentation specialist review the reports for accuracy before placing them in the patient's permanent record.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20958938
http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/radblog/display/article/113619/1997757
http://www.fortherecordmag.com/archives/042312p20.shtml
Thursday, May 3, 2012
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