Doctors are putting their patients in danger with medical dictation so bad that professionals can't even understand them, according to a Problem Solvers investigation.

Medical transcriptionists said they have been dealing with sloppy physician records for years. A transcriptionist transcribes the doctor's diagnosis and treatment for the patient's medical record. Holfeld reported that sometimes, transcribing becomes an impossible task. "We should be held accountable for quality, but it's difficult to be held accountable for quality when the challenges on the dictation are pretty overwhelming," medical transcriptionist Brenda Hurley said.

Hurley is a former president of the Florida Association of Medical Transcriptionists. She and her colleagues are joining a national campaign to expose the potential side effects of bad dictations. "If it takes multiple levels of quality assurance review, it's going to take longer to get back to the patient's chart," Hurley said. Joyce Peck was just days away from kidney surgery when she met with us two weeks ago. She caught a mistake before her surgery. "Potentially they could have taken out the wrong kidney and then I would have been left with no kidneys," Peck said. "I caught it," Peck said.

"One place it's left kidney and the next place it's right kidney," Peck said. The diagnosis of a renal malignancy -- cancer -- was caught in a radiologist's apparent flubbed dictation. "Whew," Holfeld said. "What did you think at that point?" "I didn't know what to think -- who was right?" Peck said. In fact, MRI scan confirmed it was the right kidney and not the left. Peck is recovering from kidney surgery. She shared her story as a personal public warning.

THE cost-saving initiative of out-sourcing medical notes to India for typing is facing major problems. An internet link used to transfer patient information from Lister Hospital to India has failed to meet the needs of East and North Herts NHS Trust, both in terms of speed and capacity. The Trust had hoped to save as much as £1million by axing 15 medical secretary posts and outsourcing their work. However, a medical secretary from Lister said: "After the medical secretaries were made redundant it was discovered that the NHS server for the typing to be sent over the internet to India could not cope with this system. Medical secretaries are being told that the typing will be kept at the Trust for us to type, as done in the past."

Danny Mortimer, the Trust's director of human resources, said: "Like any project of its size, there will always be initial teething problems."

"Nationally the NHS is experiencing problems with this link, both in terms of its speed and capacity of transfer of information across the internet. Contingency plans are being considered locally by the Trust, including using a separate, secure link to the internet for the medical transcription service until the problems affecting it are resolved nationally. The Trust has introduced the medical transcription service because it knows that it will save money, while at the same time providing a consistent, high-quality service. This is proving to be the case already, although more work remains to be done."

New International Credential to enhance training & career prospects for young Indian medical transcriptionists

American Association for Medical Transcription, in association with Prometric, announced the Registered Medical Transcriptionist (RMT) credentialing exam – a newly developed global ‘level-1’ credential in the arena of Medical Transcription. This program is aimed at helping the existing talent pool to scale up and meet the global standards and quality benchmarks. The two organizations also announced a special ‘India price’ for AAMT’s existing Certified Medical Transcriptionist (CMT) exam.

Medical Transcription is a booming industry with exponential growth prospects and opportunities for committed players. While globally the industry potential is around USD 30-33 billion, in India it is around USD 300 million. Currently, there are around 18,000 medical practitioners in the country and this is expected to almost double within the next 2-3 years.

A team of Labour officers, led by Additional Labour Commissioner Prakash S Oliver, made a flash visit to ‘Iridium’, one of the medical transcription companies at the Technopark (a division of GTTL), Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) around 11.30 am and verified the registers maintained by the company on the working hours, salary and other details of the employees.

According to the officials, the inspection was initiated after the Office of the Labour Commissioner received an anonymous letter regarding violation of laws in the company. It was alleged that the employees were asked to work for long hours and the salary and other benefits given to them were not satisfactory. However, the officers could not find irregularities in the documents presented to them. Meanwhile, the ‘surprise’ visit turned out to a farce as the visual media was given prior information regarding the visit. A few of them had, in fact, given flash news regarding the inquiry well before it began.

The Additional Labour Commissioner said that the company had expressed its willingness to produce any document. The company authorities were also very cooperative, he said. However, the Technopark authorities were virtually kept in the darkness about the visit and inspection. The inspection went on for around one-and-a-half hours.

Irked over the frequent interferences by the government agencies, the Technopark companies are planning to approach Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan to ensure a certain code of conduct before initiating such inspections, it is learnt.