Having a client tell a transcription service provider that the transcription service was very good but they were switching to the EMR is a nightmare comes true for most of the transcription companies. So how do we as a transcription company overcome this nightmare, which could become real???
What is EMR and how did the concept came about. In April 2004, President Bush issued Executive Order 13335, which established a new executive position charged with developing a strategic plan and incentives to promote the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). The accompanying press release stated that the President announced an ambitious goal of assuring that most Americans have electronic health records [EHRs] within the next 10 years. So you know as per this EO 2014 is the deadline.
While small practices see the majority of patient visits in the United States, less than 10% have even a basic EMR. Among all office-based physicians in the United States, only a minority has adopted electronic systems, and their use is most prevalent among primary care physicians and those practicing in large groups, hospitals, or medical centers, according to a July 3 article in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The main drawbacks of the EMR system in the market are that they are not custom made to suit a certain practice. They have inbuilt variables which have to be selected. These feature-rich EMRs are best suited for hospital systems and large medical practices that can devote full-time employees to running these applications and producing reports for management and clinical use.
Dictated notes have another advantage over notes created through structured data entry. Clinical notes are intended to help organize a physicians thought process and tell the patients story in a concise manner, but EMR-generated notes can eliminate this basic function. According to the article Off the Record ” Avoiding the Pitfalls of Going Electronic published in a recent issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, Notes that are meant to be focused and selective have become voluminous and templated, distracting from the key cognitive work of providing care. Such charts may satisfy the demands of third-party payers, but they are the product of a word processor, not of physicians thoughtful review and analysis. The best solution may be a combination of structured data and dictated notes integrated within an EMR, with physicians having the ability to choose their preferred mode of documentation.
The good news is that it is not transcription against the rest of the medical documentation industry. Many software companies recognize that dictation and transcription play a key role in medical documentation. And transcription companies have a valuable asset to bring to the table: long-time clients who trust and depend on their services.
