For medical professionals and physicians accurate medical records are important for ensuring better quality of care and patient safety. These records are also important when defending a complaint or in the face of a medical negligence case. Hence accuracy of these records is of prime importance. Reliable medical transcription services transcribe physician dictations with utmost accuracy and ensure error-free medical records. However, if you are not fastidious in selecting the right medical transcription company, you may end up with errors in your medical reports that can prove costly for both you and your patients.
Here are two common errors that are found in medical transcripts and which you have to watch out for.
- Entering the wrong numeric value: Entering incorrect value is one of the most common errors in medical transcripts. Physicians determine the dosage of medicines to be administered to the patients, but sometimes it becomes difficult to clearly identify the values due to issues such as different dialects and speech patterns. Transcriptionists not careful enough to cross check and find out the right value may enter the wrong value and this can be harmful for the patient. Similarly lab values are also sometimes wrongly entered. This is because the physicians sometimes talk too fast or fail to pause while dictating. In such cases medical transcriptionists should either leave a blank space or check with the concerned people rather than enter the incorrect value.
- Words that sound alike: In medical terminology, there are many words that sound alike which include anything from brands and generic names for medications to different diseases or medical conditions. For example “hypertension” and “hypotension,” “appose” and “oppose,” “apophysis” and “epiphysis” and so on. These words may sound similar but have different meanings and entering a wrong spelling or word can be deadly. Software programs or even unskilled transcriptionists may transcribe and enter the incorrect word and these minor errors can change the meaning of the medical report and cause confusion during treatment or when physicians and other clinical staff refer to the medical notes in future.
The importance of accurate medical transcription and medical transcription services is only going to increase in the future. In spite of speech recognition technology and other innovative advancements, trained and skilled transcriptionists will still be needed to act as medical editors and maybe function in a different role.
