Medical Transcription in a small Hospital

We are a hospital which has its own medical transcriptionist capabilities in-house. The medical transcriptionist are in a single department within the hospital organization. The medical transcriptionist each specialize in one or more areas of medical transcription (e.g., Anesthesia, Cancer & Oncology, Cardiology, Pathology, etc.). The audio recordings for the transcriptions are performed in various other departments throughout the hospital. The recordings are currently delivered to the Medical Transcription Department through the hospital’s internal mail delivery system or hand carried where turnaround is critical. Each of the medical transcriptionist are assigned a job (one or more tapes), depending on their specialty. Each medical transcriptionist loads the tape(s) onto their PC to create a single audio file for each job. They have an application on their PC to playback an enter the transcribed material.

How should we set up and use the Dynamic Outsourcing System (DOS)?

The Options

There a basically two (2) options for your use depending on whether you would like to:

1. Keep the current method of using internal mail and hand carrying tapes
2. Discontinue use of internal mail and hand carrying tapes

Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Solution #1

Register one (1) person in the Medical Transcription Department as a Requester. This requester should select all the medical transcription queues (work task specialties) on the DOS for which the department performs transcription.

Register all medical transcriptionist in the department as Providers. Each of these providers should select the queues for which they specialize.

The requester should set the QUEUE PREFERENCES for each of the queues as follows:

1. Set Provider Preference = YES
2. Add each of the provider SYSTEM IDs that perform transcription for that queue specialty
3. Set Provider Selection as you desire. The default is Round Robin (each provider in turn). The other option is In Order (always start at the first provider in the list).

The requester in the department should load all of the input audio tapes to files on their PC (rather than each transcriptionist loading the tape(s) on their PC. Using the DOS, the requester should ADD AN ENTRY TO QUEUE n, where n is the appropriate queue for an audio files on their PC. From the popup window browse to locate the file and upload a file from their PC to the DOS. Browse to your instructions file on your PC if you want to upload instructions from your PC. Select the CONTINUE or SKIP button and then select the SUBMIT & CYCLE button (allows you to keep adding entries to a queue) if you have more files for this queue. If not select the SUBMIT & END button. Go to another queue and repeat from ADD AN ENTRY TO QUEUE n until all of your audio files are added to the appropriate queues.

The providers in the department will see that they have been assigned to queue entries based on your queue preferences setting for each queue. The providers should complete the work task and the requester will be notified of each completion. The requester should then perform completion activities which includes downloading the output files to their their PC.

The advantage of this solution is that there is only one (1) Requester. The disadvantage is that it still utilizes your internal mail and hand carrying of tapes.

Solution #2

The difference in this solution is that there is a Requester in each of the places in the hospital that create the audio tapes which you transcribe. Theses requesters should be registered to the DOS and then they perform the requester functions shown above.

The advantage here is that the audio files are delivered quickly via the Internet and do not rely on your current delivery methods. The disadvantage is that multiple Requesters are required.

Hybrid Solution

You could combine the above solutions by having a Requester in the department for tapes delivered by internal mail and additional Requesters only in the places which produce audio files which need to be expedited.

Other Options

Most hospitals no longer use audio tapes as in the above scenario. Audio files are the norm in hospitals now and would be much more convenient in most scenarios.

The Good News

The greatest advantage of any of the solutions above is the they are all completely FREE until further notice.

Possibilities

Each of the registered Providers are eligible to perform medical transcription for other Requesters on the DOS. This means they could moonlight or perform these activities to produce additional revenue for the hospital during slack periods within the hospital. You may even want to consider letting the medical transcriptionist work from home since everything is now possible via the Internet. Telecommuting is a great incentive for retaining personnel in the work environment today and even more so in the future.

At some point you might even want to consider letting the medical transcriptionist become individual entrepreneurs and only have requesters employed by the hospital. Doing this and bidding the work out has the potential for cost reduction for the hospital (elimination of office space cost, equipment cost, benefits costs, etc.) and allows the transcriptionist independence.