Medical Transcription Software

Medical Transcription Software
by Ricci Mathew
Most medical transcription is today done manually but a lot of effort and research is going on to develop a total medical transcription software program that can make medical transcription a totally automatic process without human intervention. The future may bring in such perfected software but one can be sure that day is quite far away.
With our present day technology different types of software and other tools are used and they are of great help to the professional medical transcriptionists. The use of such software and various tools can greatly reduce the time taken (turnaround time) to finish the transcription work and also increases the work productivity and efficiency. VRS or the voice recognition technology that is used to convert dictations into text are already in use but quite prone to error and so one cannot totally depended upon it. Especially, one cannot yet expect VRS to recognize every spoken word and to be able to use logic similar to a human being to perfectly come up with the right word all the time. However this is a dynamically evolving area and over the years perfection in automated transcription could become a reality.
So how is it that the present day medical transcriptionists use these software products? When audio dictations from doctors and healthcare professionals are recorded and sent to the transcriber the software is used to create a first draft which is then quickly reviewed by the transcriptionist and then edited / proofread and perfected to a high level of accuracy, preferably over 99%.
What are the functions that software do/support during the medical transcription process? Some of the features / functions of software used for medical transcription include,
Capture of the voice
Speech processing
Speech recognition
Document formatting
Support wide range of audio/video formats
Word processor
Medical spell check / Dictionary
Remote control /keyboard short cuts
Quick editing
Electronic signature
Document distribution
Support /manage different time frame rates
Create time codes and navigate to any specific timeline
Customize media appearance
Audio playback possible
Import data with different settings in text or XML
Integrates with other healthcare systems
Easy printing
Exports / insertions made possible
Medical transcription training is another area that uses specially evolved medical transcription training software that allows the aspiring medical transcription candidates to get the feel of real world transcription and incorporates systematically designed lessons and tests for home based transcription. Such MT software packages come in CDs that can be purchased and used in combination with texts if required.