How To Improve Patient Engagement In 2022

24-February-2022 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Patient Engagement

Better patient engagement in health care delivery has the potential to improve health outcomes and patient satisfaction and reduce costs. For instance, medical transcription outsourcing is a practical strategy that can improve patient-physician engagement during the clinical encounter and improve quality of care.

Patient engagement basically means involving patients in their own care. According to an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funded study, “The concept of patient engagement can be defined as the desire and capability to actively choose to participate in care in a way uniquely appropriate to the individual in cooperation with a healthcare provider or institution for the purposes of maximizing outcomes or experiences of care.” Providing access to necessary resources, personalization, commitment to delivering quality care, patient activation, and building a positive patient-provider relationship are the key pillars of patient engagement.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led healthcare organizations to reconsider how they can better engage with patients and deliver a seamless and exceptional consumer experience. Let’s take a look at the strategies that experts are recommending to improve patient engagement in 2022.

  • Communicate effectively: In 2022, organizations need to focus on providing easier and personalized healthcare. With the Covid-19 pandemic, telehealth proved to be the turning point when it came to connecting with patients. Patient portals are ideal platforms for sharing goals, action items, and data with patients. Digital tools and messaging can help providers connect with patients quickly and easily. Automated messaging delivered via SMS allows patients to send and receive information, schedule appointments, prepare for an upcoming surgery and more conveniently from their mobile device. Automated tools can be used to send appointment and medication adherence reminders or drug refill notifications. Even rehab sessions can be scheduled online. HIMSS reports on how Confluence Health successfully implemented an automated digital patient engagement campaign to educate patients about the importance of getting the COVID-19 vaccine and reduce no-shows for vaccine appointments. They managed to reach out to about 6,000 patients and no-show rate for scheduled patients was just 1 percent.
  • Patient Engagement: For medical services to be really effective, patients should be activated to participate in their own care. Patient activation means that patients must understand their role in the care process and have the willingness and knowledge, and ability to take independent actions to manage their health and care (patientengagementhit). Robust patient education, shared decision-making strategies, and patient outreach techniques and tools can help clinicians to promote meaningful patient activation and improve patient engagement and health outcomes. A Mayo Clinic study found that a shared decision-making program with their patients reduced hospital admissions by 19 percent.
  • Personalization: It’s crucial to remember that each patient is a unique individual. Rather than the treatment process and procedure, physicians should practice active listening and focus on understanding the patient story and their expectations, goals, and desires. Patients, especially those with chronic conditions, may have specific questions, and it’s important that the physician provides satisfactory answers to them. Proper communication, taking time to understand a patient’s experience or point of view, and answering questions are all a crucial part of building a positive provider-patient relationship and engaging patients in their own healthcare. Medical transcription services can play a key role in helping physicians focus better on the patient.
  • Provide patient-friendly educational content: Developing and providing quality educational content to patients will help engage and motivate them. While health literacy is an important factor when it comes to patient engagement, insufficient health literacy skills is a major barrier. Many patients are limited in their ability to use, obtain, and process certain health information. Clinicians can foster engagement among patients of all education levels by explaining conditions and treatments in simple terms. Patients can be provided with a step-by-step navigation guide to transforming mindset, habits and lifestyles. Reaching out to professional digital marketers is the best way to create patient friendly written, audio and video content on various topics. Patients should be provided with consistent guidance and reinforcement throughout their wellness journey.
  • Share decision making: The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), defines shared decision-making (SDM) as “a process in which clinicians and patients work together to make decisions and select tests, treatments and care plans based on clinical evidence that balances risks and outcomes with patient preferences and values.” Patients want to be involved in decisions about their health and when patients and providers make decisions together, patients fare better. SDM can activate patients in their own treatment. On the other hand, not practicing SDM leads to poor patient-reported health outcomes, worse quality indicators, and higher rates of healthcare utilization. Before using SDM, providers should clearly understand patient needs and ideas, and inform them about the treatment options and potential side effects of each.
  • Continued support: Driving engagement after patients leave the facility is about making sure they understand the importance of follow-up care and also providing them with convenient tools to access care. Telehealth will continue to play a role here even as the pandemic eases. Promoting adherence to follow-up care with patient education and health IT tools can drive positive care outcomes.

Patient engagement has emerged as an essential element in primary care. Maintaining accurate medical records is crucial for efficient and safe care delivery and to support patient engagement. However, clinicians have limited time with each patient and that time should be focused on the patient, and not on EHR data entry. Partnering with an experienced provider of family practice medical transcription services can help clinicians maintain error-free medical records, focus on care delivery, enhance patient engagement, and avoid burnout.

View our infographic on Tips To Improve Patient Engagement In 2022 [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Is Voice AI Set To Transform Healthcare?

21-February-2022 Julie Clements Medical Transcription Company

Voice AI

Voice artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized communication in many industries, including the healthcare sector. Speech recognition in AI is used by physicians to convert dictation into text in real-time and the notes are often sent out to a medical transcription service company for editing and review. But this is not the only way AI is transforming the medical industry. Among other things, the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing digital transformation in health in which AI adoption plays a major role.

According to reports, 128 million people in the U.S. use voice assistants. Advances in machine learning and deep learning allow voice assistants to carry out even complex commands. Healthcare chat bots are expanding and changing how care is delivered, and their use is expected to grow at a rapid pace.

“The healthcare conversational AI market is growing at a 25%–35% compound annual rate,” says Brian Kalis, Managing Director, Health Strategy, Accenture. “Companies like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud are investing heavily in technologies specifically designed for healthcare and partnering with health systems to pilot their innovations” (Health Leaders Media).

Let’s take a look the many applications of voice AI in healthcare and the benefits for patients and providers.

Voice AI and Patients

  • Healthcare information: AI bots help patients get answers to their questions about signs and symptoms, illnesses, treatment options, potential side effects of medications, drug availability, and wellness tips. Healthcare bots like Your. MD allow patients to check their symptoms, ask a question and take a health quiz.
  • Connect with healthcare services: Patients can use a physician’s chat bot to book appointments directly. The bot can allocate a physician, send an email to the provider with the patient’s information, and schedule an appointment. Voice based assistants will tell the patients what they need to do to manage the process, such as upload their reports if their medical problem requires it. In fact, bots became a stress-free way to schedule medical appointments during the COVID-19 pandemic when telemedicine adoption became widespread. Patients can even receive appointment reminders via a bot.
  • Mental health support: There are AI bots to help with mental health. Patients can directly share their distress with the virtual assistant which can interpret their emotions from the tone of their voice. AI systems can identify, triage, analyze or guide patients with mental health concerns very efficiently. Wysa is an example of an emotionally intelligent chatbot that uses a combination of tools and techniques like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), evidence-based CBT, and guided meditation to help manage thoughts and emotions.
  • Better manage treatment regimens and chronic conditions: Patient adherence is a major concern, especially with virtual care. Healthcare bots help patient manage their own health and treatment regimens. Take Mabu, Catalia Health software that is specially designed to help patients manage their chronic conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis and cancer. This robot asks patients how they are feeling and based on their answer, can tell them that they might want to contact their doctor (news.mit.edu).

Voice AI and Physicians

  • Documentation support without voice commands: Error-free electronic health record (EHR) documentation is necessary to ensure continuity of care as well as for medical billing and regulatory compliance. But creating and reviewing notes can bog down physicians’ time. AI bots provide real-time support for clinical documentation. They reduce the administrative burden related to note-taking and allow physicians to focus on value-added care. Today, voice AI has transformed this process. Nuance’s Saykara is an AI-powered healthcare voice assistant that works without any voice commands during a physician-patient encounter.

    This bot:

    • Listens in on patient-physician conversations or from summaries provided by physicians’ post-encounters with patients
    • Uses speech recognition and natural language processing technology to interpret and transform the content into notes, orders, referrals and more
    • Enters both structured and unstructured data directly to the EHR the process of producing clinical notes in real-time

    By automating the process of producing clinical notes in real-time, Kara minimizes the physician’s after-hours charting and records entry burden.

  • Provide answers for FAQs: Physicians can use a chatbot to answer their frequently asked questions. They can communicate on matters relating to symptoms, insurance coverage, claims, documents, business hours, etc.
  • Billing and claims: With easy access to patient information as well as queries, physicians can pre-authorize billing payments and other requests received from patients or healthcare establishments. Patients can also find relevant information on their current insurance coverage and track the status of a claim.
  • Patient feedback: Chatbots can collect feedback from patients on the physician’s services.

Challenges of Conversational AI

Like all innovative solutions, voice AI also comes with certain challenges. The first is security. Chatbots collect patient information by asking simple questions about name, address, symptoms, current doctor, and insurance details. This information is then stored in the medical facility system to enable patient admission, symptom tracking, doctor-patient communication, and medical record keeping. This could pose a security problem as users usually are not aware of how their sensitive personal identifying information is treated, used, stored, or even shared.

Another concern is regarding how well they can catch emotions. Experts are sceptical about whether chatbots can help patients with emotional trauma. To increase outreach to patients with emotional chatbots, physicians should also include face-to-face (or monitor-to-monitor) interactions with patients. Also, voice assistants can have conversations only in English and not in other languages. This limits their use for many people.

While voice AI is here to stay, when it comes to accurate EHR documentation, medical transcription services are still relevant. AI-generated documents generated in real-time have to be reviewed for accuracy and partnering with a medical transcription company is the best way to do this.

Avoid Medico Legal Issues With EHR-Integrated Medical Transcription Services

14-February-2022 Rajeev Rajagopal EHR Transcription

Medico Legal Issues

In the U.S., federal and state laws require that every health care provider establish and maintain an accurate medical record for each patient. The HIMSS says that, “Regardless of format, whether paper, hybrid, or electronic, the medical record must meet the requirements of the legal and business record for the organization.” Accurate medical records can be generated by transcribing the physician’s dictation with the help of a reliable and experienced medical transcription service provider.

A medical record or a medical document is the most crucial element of a healthcare organization and an important part of the process of diagnosis and treatment of patients. Patients’ medical records are kept in a secure place, so that they are safe from unwanted access and can be accessed by authorized personnel only. With the advent of digital technology, storing information is easier than ever before. Information can be stored on computers, hard drives or servers. Today, hospitals, clinics and other healthcare practices use electronic health records (EHR) for storing patient information, which enables doctors to access the necessary information quickly and easily.

Medical Records and Their Legal Use

Accurate medical records not only help in ensuring good patient care but also serve as legal documents for healthcare providers as they contain information about adverse events such as accidents, criminal activities and any such act that harmed patients and for which they are under treatment. These medical records may be referred to in legal proceedings to understand the diagnosis, treatment, and progress of a patient, or they may be used to prove malpractice on the part of a health care provider. The medical record is a reflection of what occurred between a patient and his or her provider as far as the medical care that was provided. It has important evidential value. In case of any malpractice, legal experts regularly refer to the medical records to determine the quality of care that was provided and whether or not the accepted standards were followed. The medical record is also critical for patients who are involved in litigation as it provides a clear and detailed account of what happened during the treatment. In short, the medical record is an essential part of any healthcare provider’s practice.

Electronic Health Records May Be Error-prone

When physicians prefer to dictate their treatment notes, consult notes, progress notes and so on, these have to be accurately transcribed and details entered into the electronic health record system. Given the medical record’s value as a legal document, accuracy is paramount. The toughest part of medico legal transcription, whether done in-house or whether outsourced, is transcribing unfamiliar medical terminology that is an integral part of medical records. Therefore, it is important to reach out to an experienced, professional medical transcription company that can deliver international standard medico legal transcription with the highest accuracy and quality.

Not all EHR systems may have automated transcription feature that is legally valid. Another point to remember is that automated medical transcripts may have issues such as missed diagnosis, wrong lab results, patient mix-up, juxtaposition errors, template errors and so on. However, a medical transcription company providing EHR-integrated medical transcription will help physicians, practices, and healthcare facilities meet all the medical-legal requirements for their electronic health record system. They will stay HIPAA-compliant and help avoid legal risks.

Electronic health records that are not properly designed and used can cause inadvertent errors such as dosing errors, loss of data, failure to diagnose serious illnesses, treatment delays and so on. With a good EHR-integrated medical transcription service, each and every record is checked and clarified to ensure they are error-free. This helps avoid claim delays and denials as well as costly litigation.

These services provide benefits such as the following.

  • Comprehensive and accurate medical documentation that helps ensure patient safety and HIPAA compliance.
  • Privacy: Professional medical transcription providers ensure the privacy of sensitive medical information. Transcriptionists are trained to protect private information both on the clock and off, and avoid any discussion of protected documents.
  • Speed: In the age of electronic health records, hospitals are employing medical transcriptionists to update patient records quickly, providing many exam and test results within hours after they have been performed.
  • Terminology: Professional medical transcriptionists are familiar with complex medical terminologies and ensure accurate and error-free medical records.

Medical records are valuable documents because they are related to human life; they have legal and business requirements to meet and are expected to adhere to prescribed standards that assist the professional, regulatory, and statutory needs of reliable medical-legal documents connected with healthcare organizations. Therefore, to minimize in-house workload and stay legally compliant, healthcare entities can utilize EHR-integrated medical transcription services. This ensures that the medical records are reliable and valid, which in turn ensures patient safety. EHR-integration solutions are available for all types of electronic interfaces including Document interface and ADT interface.

Importance of Real-time Data Entry for Medical Reporting

10-February-2022 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Medical Reporting

Electronic health records (EHRs) are designed to ensure accurate, current, and complete information about patients at the point of care. Physicians and nurses are always encouraged to perform medical charting as close to the patient as possible. Real-time data refers to the recording of patient evaluations, observations, and interventions and all other types of clinical data as they are generated. Real-time data capture supports informed clinical decision support which improves patient care and safety. Today, there are a vast array of advanced digital tools to capture clinical data and deliver it into the shared medical record. For instance, physicians use voice recognition software to get their speech converted to text in real-time and rely on medical transcription services to get the AI-generated documents edited and reviewed to correct any misinterpretations.

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Relevance of Real-time Data Entry in Healthcare

The integration of shared electronic health records enables patients to receive better care as their healthcare providers will have quick and easy access to their records. Timely data entry is important to ensure accuracy in shared patient records. The key benefits of real-time integrated data capture in healthcare are as follows:

  • Prevents errors: Delays in data entry can lead to errors in the medical record. The wider the gap between the health event or encounter and data entry, the greater the chances of mistakes and omission of important details. This will lead to incorrect hand-off communications and impact patient outcomes. With real-time data entry, patient results and other information are documented as soon as they are available. As everything is recorded when it happens, physicians don’t have to worry about missing information in the EHR.
  • Improves decision-making and patient care: Real-time data enables clinicians to make proper decisions based on comprehensive information. Telmediq references a study published in Nursing Times which found that up-to-date data can help physicians and nurses to spot patterns that show a patient is deteriorating or may have an infection. While some data points may be automatically fed into the EHR, vital observational data from nurses and doctors are not automatically entered. Real-time data entry ensures timely recording of all this clinical data. This will help staff take the right decisions and implement interventions before the patient’s state becomes critical.
  • Lowers overall costs: Manual data entry can lead to errors that increase overall administrative costs. Human data entry can lead to errors and correcting them increases the administrative burden. Organizations have to waste valuable time and resources on correcting the mistakes. Automated data entry reduces the time involved in entering, recording and checking information. It also decreases costs on redundant medicaments and prevents costly duplications.
  • Improves compliance: EHR data and real-time data entry provide clinicians with a complete view of the patient’s past medical history and present illness. This information can be used by hospitals to assess their compliance with clinical protocols and whether their patient harm prevention alert strategies are working efficiently. In addition to improving care, real-time automated recording of observations, assessments and interventions helps implement staff deployments based on patient needs, and provides a clear data trail during investigations of incidents and complaints, explains Telmediq.

Real-time Medical Data Capture Solutions

A data driven, real-time health system would incorporate different types of solutions to capture data in real-time. Point-of-care technology captures data on the spot and allows it to be shared electronically during patient appointments.Health apps capture key health parameters and transmit them real-time. However, healthcare IT integration is complex. It involves bringing different IT, clinical, telecom, and EMR/EHR systems together to allow information flow. An ideal solution that supports real-time charting, as reported by womenled.org, would feature the following:

  • Intelligent field mapping to minimize duplicate data entry
  • A user-friendly interface with all data available on a single platform
  • Voice-to-text capability to speed up and simplify data entry
  • Easy transfer of clinical notes for rapid documentation
  • Immediate delivery of critical lab and test results to the right clinician with date, time, recipient, and delivery status

Real-time patient data capture has become increasingly important with the COVID-19 pandemic. Mobihealth recently reported on Coviu, a new app that combines telehealth and remote patient monitoring to help providers manage COVID cases. The app can display health data from bluetooth-enabled medical devices, such as pulse oximeters, blood pressure monitors, and digital thermometers, in video teleconsultations. Clinicians can get real-time measurements while holding a video call with a patient.

Coming to EHR documentation, automatic speech recognition services allow physicians to quickly and easily dictate their notes and get their speech converted to text automatically in real-time. This text can be automatically integrated into EHR systems.

While such automated transcription tools may have changed the EHR data capture game, accuracy is often a problem. “More or less accurate” is unacceptable in healthcare. Moreover, the software can have problems with jargon and cannot recognize accents and multiple voices. But fortunately, there’s a solution – getting the machine generated text checked by a professional medical transcriptionist. US based medical transcription companies have skilled teams that review and edit automated transcripts to ensure error-free EHR medical documentation.

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Tips To Write Good Mental Health Progress Notes [INFOGRAPHIC]

07-February-2022 Julie Clements Infographics

Mental health progress notes refer to notes that psychologists, therapists, clinical counselors, psychiatrists, and other practitioners create at each session about the patient’s clinical status. When maintaining mental health records, clinicians need to consider patient needs, legal requirements, ethical standards, and other factors.These notes include important issues or concerns associated with the patient’s treatment over the course of care. Maintaining accurate psychological records allows providers to monitor their work and promotes continuity of care. Psychiatry transcription services play a key role in helping mental health specialists ensure accurate and timely record keeping. Mental health progress notes are important to provide evidence that competent care was provided, demonstrate medical necessity and more. Many practices follow the S.O.A.P. format (Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan).

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Mental Health

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How Radiology And Radiology Transcription Are Vital To An Accurate Early Diagnosis

03-February-2022 Rajeev Rajagopal Radiology Transcription

Radiology Transcription

Radiology imaging technique is widely used in almost all healthcare specialities to diagnose diseases and conditions. These diagnostic images have to be interpreted by the radiologist and transcribed into accurate radiology transcripts, which are later forwarded to the physician to decide on the treatment plan. In short, radiologists and doctors work hand-in-hand to decipher imaging studies and communicate results. Therefore, accurate transcription of radiology reports is vital in the healthcare system and hiring radiology transcription services is the best way to ensure accuracy of radiology reports.

A radiology report includes complex anatomical and medical terms specifically written for healthcare providers. The radiologist analyzes the diagnostic imaging and writes a detailed report about the patient’s condition. A radiology report may include:

  • Ultrasounds
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging(MRI)
  • X-Rays
  • Computer Tomography (CT)
  • Mammograms
  • Position Emission Tomography (PET)
  • Bone Scans
  • Consultations and Progress Notes
  • Nuclear Medicine, and many more

Radiology can be used for advanced testing and treatment, for screening and wellness, and to detect diseases and conditions. Radiology transcription has the key responsibility of conveying accurate and comprehensive description of the internal anatomy of patients and with the onus of suggesting perfect diagnosis of diseases. With accurate radiology transcription, diseases such as cancer, heart conditions, Alzheimer’s, pneumonia, kidney and bladder stones, stroke, renal cysts and many other diseases can be identified at a very early stage. This helps physicians determine the treatment and medicines to cure the disease. It not only impacts mortality and minimizes the chances of the patient’s death, but it also decreases morbidity.

When it comes to medical reports, accurate radiology transcripts help in better understanding of the patient’s condition and determining the appropriate treatment plan. To get accurate radiology transcripts, here is how the radiology transcription process goes:

  • The physicians or the healthcare organization forwards the audio dictation files or handwritten radiology diagnosis reports to a reliable medical transcription provider.
  • The audio file or the text report or other related resources are retrieved and it is first assigned to a medical transcriptionist.
  • The transcriptionist listens to the audio file, carries out a verbatim transcription using predefined templates and submits the transcription for proofreading.
  • The transcript is proofread by a team of experts and the document is thoroughly scrutinized. Errors are noted and a feedback is sent to the transcriptionist.
  • The transcriptionist makes necessary changes and forwards it to the quality assurance (QA) team.
  • The quality assurance team thoroughly studies the document for any deviations in quality. The quality assurance team uses industry-leading techniques such as random sampling technique for this purpose, and finally submits a copy of their analysis to the transcriptionist and proofreading team.
  • After the quality check, 99.99% accurate radiology transcriptions are sent back to the physician or healthcare organization using HL7 interface. The final documents are sent to the client in the format of their choice.

Outsourcing Ensures Accurate Radiology Transcription

  • Access to skilled radiology transcriptionists: Outsourcing medical transcription provides access to experienced and skilled transcriptionists who can transcribe radiology reports into accurate transcripts with utmost accuracy. They have very good knowledge in medical terminologies that makes the transcription error-free.
  • Three levels of quality check: Professional transcription providers ensure multiple levels of quality assurance which ensures that all transcripts are error-free and of high quality. This helps physicians to understand the diagnosis, decide on the right treatment plan, and ensure good patient care.
  • Quick turnaround time: As mentioned above, transcription services have professional transcriptionists who have good listening and typing skills that helps to transcribe radiology reports or audio recordings accurately and in quick turnaround time.
  • Cost-effective: Outsourcing to a reliable medical transcription company is much more cost-effective than setting up an in-house team for transcription. It requires setting up transcription software and other required equipment.

Many radiologists and clinics have already realized the significance of outsourcing radiology transcription to reliable medical transcription providers. Outsourcing to radiology transcription services is essential for any healthcare units. Practices that choose this method can see more accurate diagnoses, a better reputation for medical care, and also enhance the overall quality of life for healthcare staff.

What Are the Future Trends in Medical Transcription?

31-January-2022 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Medical Transcription

New and innovative technologies are constantly transforming the medical industry and improving processes in medical practices. Many developments have led to better patient care and enhanced patient safety. One of the clear signs of this transformation are the developments witnessed in medical transcription. Medical transcription is about converting physician dictation into text format and integrating the documentation into the electronic health record (EHR). This also includes editing and proof reading voice recognition draft reports.

Medical transcriptionists are well-versed in medical terminology and jargon, and also check punctuation, grammar, and language, and use word processing software to ensure accurate records. That’s why healthcare providers are outsourcing medical transcription to ensure utmost accuracy in EHR documentation.

Various developments in medical transcription have changed the game. The next few years are expected to bring advancements that will make transcribing faster, more accurate and more cost-effective. Healthcare organizations are focusing on technology to help physicians better diagnose and treat patients. They are also trying to reduce the error rate in transcribing notes for patients’ medical records by using software that reads spoken word audio clips and using medical transcription services to ensure higher accuracy. Some of the latest trends in the medical transcription field are as follows:

  • Voice recognition software: Voice-recognition software helps medical practices streamline workflow. The time pressures of modern work environments have made voice-recognition software especially popular. Due to the nature of their work and time constraints, many physicians prefer hands-free dictation to typing. The advanced features of this software help them provide better care by allowing them to focus on the patient instead of typing on the computer during the consultation.
  • Advanced reporting techniques: Many web based services and devices are now available to help doctors transcribe medical information. These devices and services have replaced traditional recorders. The use of electric consoles, word processors, and devices with built in speech recognition and memory storage systems will substantially increase demand for recording service providers.
  • Automation: New developments provide seamless connectivity which means that medical records can be updated to a central database for doctors and other healthcare professionals and more easily shared across settings. Medical transcriptionists can work directly in EHRs, which helps all providers involved in the patient’s care to access the information.
  • New formats for medical documentation: In order to meet EHR standards, the medical transcription industry is moving away from word-processed documents. The new format has been modified so as to accommodate point-and-click fields and drop-downs as well as the use of structured templates. This will provide a more systematic approach to recording patient medical data.
  • Rise in outsourcing: Medical transcription companies have come a long way over the last decade. They provide EHR-integrated documentation solutions for all specialties and also ensure HIPAA compliance. With the advancements in the field, physicians are confidently hiring the services of medical transcription outsourcing companies.
  • Secure networks: Mobile transcription has become a reality and can now be performed using mobile phone devices or tablets. Enhanced network security keeps shared data secure.

There are many speech recognition options that physicians can avail of to transcribe their notes, but medical transcription will continue to be relevant to ensure accuracy in documentation. Software makes medical transcription easy, but physicians don’t have the time to edit and proof read reports created on a computer. The human touch is essential to ensure quality. This is why physicians are outsourcing medical transcription. Reliable companies have the man power, technology and quality control measures in place to ensure accurate and timely medical transcription.

Key Elements in Nursing Documentation [INFOGRAPHIC]

27-January-2022 Julie Clements Infographics

Maintaining accurate and timely nursing records is essential for communication among all members of the patient’s healthcare team and to support the delivery of safe, appropriate and continuous care. Nurses are often accountable for creating the patient chart and updating all information from vital signs or emergencies the patient experiences during the hospital stay. To get clear, concise and comprehensive patient charts, it is critical for the nursing documentation to include all the essential components with regards to professional nursing standards. Nursing transcription services provided by experienced companies ensure accurate and timely electronic health record (EHR) documentation. The American Nursing Association (ANA) has set down primary guidelines that serve as the gold standard for the basis of nursing documentation. The ANA recommends that all entries in the medical record must be legible/readable and that standardized terminology should be used to describe the planning, delivery, and evaluation of nursing care.

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Nursing Documentation

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5 Key Roles Of Medical Transcription In Healthcare

20-January-2022 MTS TEAM Medical Transcription

Medical Transcription

The role of medical transcription and transcriptionists is becoming more significant in today’s healthcare industry due to the increase in demand for healthcare services and consequent increase in documentation requirements. Medical transcription is a valuable service for health care systems as it helps healthcare providers maintain error-free medical records. Reputable and experienced providers of medical transcription services focus on ensuring reliable, accurate, and timely transcription of clinicians’ recordings and dictations. This helps in making the best, customized care available for patients which is most important for favorable treatment outcomes.

Here’s a look at five key roles of medical transcription in healthcare.

  • Promotes communication: Medical transcriptionists play a very important role in promoting communication among healthcare staff members. They take the information and document it accurately. Patient records as well as test results are documented by these professionals so that they can be sent over to various facilities and doctors if necessary. Medical transcriptionists ensure that the medical records are accurate so that there are no complications or setbacks. With the correct medical records, the communication between doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals will be smooth.
  • Improves efficiency: Today, doctors are forced to spend their time on EHR documentation. But with medical transcription service, doctors can focus better on the patient’s medical needs, rather than spend time on the EHR. This improves the efficiency of the healthcare providers. Medical transcriptionists also help to prevent costly mistakes by providing accurate and precise information in a report that can be easily read by all healthcare professionals involved in the patient’s case.
  • Better consistency for quick insurance claims processing: Having consistent and accurate documentation of recorded material is not only important for patient care and the operation of your health care facility, but is also a vital aspect of medical billing. With accurate medical records, healthcare providers can also stay protected from legal battles related to medical malpractice and negligence. So, medical transcriptionists need to provide great attention to detail and have excellent listening skills.
  • Helps maintain patient medical history: Medical transcription helps healthcare facilities maintain a patient’s medical history, which doctors may need to treat the patient in the future. It allows for quick follow-up on tests, and can assist in developing a treatment plan. Accurate medical transcription provides the right information regarding the diagnosis and treatments provided.
  • Better collaboration between facilities: Medical transcription also allows healthcare facilities to collaborate. This is an important aspect because they must communicate effectively with one another in order to give the best possible care to their patients. Having easy access to medical records is vital because even the smallest mistakes could lead to bad consequences.

Medical transcription is a fast-growing career option. In fact, it’s the nation’s second-fastest growing job field, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Accurate medical transcription ensures reliable medical records that are used by doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to provide better treatment for the patients. Medical transcriptionists are highly trained professionals who undergo extensive training to ensure they can perform their jobs well. The work of a medical transcriptionist is very important to the healthcare industry because they provide accurate, reliable and timely information on a patient’s condition to doctors and other healthcare workers.

Medical transcriptionists ensure that medical dictations or recordings are transcribed into accurate medical records while also abiding by HIPAA. Transcription services are available for all medical specialties such as cardiology transcription, psychiatric transcription, neurology transcription, endocrinology transcription and so on.

Best 10 HIPAA-Compliant Telemedicine Platforms

17-January-2022 Julie Clements HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA-Compliant

With the increased need for remote healthcare and digitized patient communication, the demand for telemedicine solutions has risen mainly during the COVID-19 pandemic. More and more hospitals are now providing telemedicine/telehealth solutions to digitize patient experience. Telemedicine platforms are used to provide health support to patients through technological capabilities such as mobile phones, computers, or tablets. Just like relying on HIPAA-compliant and EHR-integrated medical transcription services to ensure that these encounters are securely documented, it is also important for providers to choose trustworthy telemedicine platforms.

According to a report from Fortune Business Insights, the telehealth market is projected to reach USD 636.38 billion in 2028, from USD 90.74 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 32.1% during the forecast period, 2021-2028. The report highlights that the market’s adoption rate is increasing dramatically, especially in radiology, cardiology, behavioral health, and online consultation. The market is also increasing in significance, with the rising start-ups funding and the launch of products for virtual consultation.

With reliable platforms, healthcare providers can communicate with patients via audio call, video call, email, messenger, or tracking applications. Such platforms can turn HIPAA-compliant by incorporating administrative, physical, and technical safeguards that reasonably and appropriately protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all data in accordance with the Security Rule.

10 Best HIPAA-compliant Telehealth Platforms

1. OhMD

OhMD
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Trusted by over 30,000 healthcare professionals, this HIPAA-compliant texting and telehealth platform helps providers to replace phone tag and voicemails by texting patients efficiently while improving care. They can also quickly and effectively communicate with colleagues, care teams, and referring providers. This platform’s Video Visits allow connecting with patients in real-time directly from a patient chat. Providers can also use two-way SMS patient texting with patients in the same place and launch a patient video visit, all in just one click.

2. Carepatron

carepatron

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This fully integrated, HIPAA-compliant telehealth videoconferencing tool is dedicated to delivering stress-free, reliable video appointments. Progress note templates allow capturing clinical notes from within the app and then easily store the patient details safely within the EHR system. This software is ideal not only for clinical documentation, but also for patient appointment scheduling as well as medical billing and coding. Its integrated clinical assessments and progress note templates can help to get the work done accurately.

3. Zoom for Healthcare

zoom healthcare

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Zoom for healthcare platform supports a variety of applications including telehealth, medical education, collaborative healthcare, and population-based care to patients around the globe. An ideal platform for virtual care & communication, providers can deliver care anywhere. With just one click, they can connect with patients virtually for treatment, care coordination, and follow-up visits. Providers can also easily screen share imaging and test results with all participants. This platform includes Zoom Meetings, Zoom Phone, and Zoom Chat, helps users to enable compliance with HIPAA by employing administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect PHI and by executing a business associate agreement (BAA).

4. Healthie

healthie

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This all-in-one telehealth platform offers the most inclusive suite of features, which enables nutrition and wellness professionals to provide advanced and accessible healthcare. Its key features include Client Engagement Portal, Electronic Paperwork, Scheduling, Wellness Programs, Telehealth & Webinars, Billing, Cloud-based EHR and more. This software is also PIPEDA, GDPR, and PCI-compliant.

5. Doxy.me

doxy

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This platform complies with HIPAA, GDPR, PHIPA/PIPEDA, & HITECH requirements and implements state-of-the-art security and encryption protocols to make sure that data integrity and privacy are maintained. Providers can use the live chat option to simply and easily communicate with a patient by text, even while they are on a call with a different patient. Its patient queue option allows providers to see the next patient who has checked in and they can even jump between patients quickly and easily. With this easy-to-use telemedicine platform, there’s no need to download software or apps, and patients don’t need to create accounts or remember passwords.

6. GoToMeeting

go to meeting

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This secure, HIPAA-compliant video conferencing and meeting tool is a flexible cloud phone system with calls, video meetings, messages and call center capability. Compliant with the latest industry security and privacy standards, this software keeps the patients’ sensitive information safe. Security features such as one-time passwords and meeting lock, disabled recordings and in-session chat can help keep unwanted guests out. It allows easier appointment booking by integrating calendar plugins like Outlook, Google, Calendly, and Curve Dental. Users can also communicate with the team seamlessly with MS Teams, Slack, and HipChat integrations.

7. TheraNest

theranest

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With this tool, providers have full control over the audio and video during virtual consultations. They can quickly join sessions with their unique session link and can even share their screen or have patients share theirs to easily share resources and go over worksheets/ homework. Providers can create invoices and superbills for Telehealth sessions with only a few clicks.

8. athenaTelehealth

athena telehealth

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This embedded telehealth software is quite simple for patients and providers to use. Without leaving the platform, providers can complete a full telehealth visit, from appointment scheduling through billing. Caregivers can also add up to four team members to join the encounter in a video consultation.

9. Medici

Medici platform allows providers to access their patients easily and thus provide better care. This software meets the highest security standards in the marketplace, with SOC2 Type 2, HIPAA and VCPR compliance. It allows file sharing and real-time chat translation in over 40 languages and incorporates features that provide the ability to add colleagues to cases, and ensure true continuity of care complete with eReferrals and ePrescriptions.

10. Chiron Health

chiron health

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This platform is dedicated to making routine visits easier and more convenient – both for the doctors and the patients. This software’s video visits are secure, easy-to-use and designed to improve practice efficiency and patient care.

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HIPAA-Compliant Telemedicine Platforms

Virtual medical consultations need to be HIPAA-compliant, secure, and private. Choosing the right HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform is crucial to improve health outcomes. Practices can also partner with the right medical transcription services to get their EHR documentation right.

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