History
The evolution of the transcription dates back to the 1960s. The method was designed to assist in the manufacturing process. The first transcription that was developed in this process was MRP, which is the acronym for Manufacturing Resource Planning, in 1975. This was followed by another advanced version namely MRP2. But none of them yielded the benefit of medical transcription.
However, transcription equipment has changed from manual typewriters to electric typewriters to word processors to computers and from plastic disks and magnetic belts to cassettes and endless loops and digital recordings. Today, voice recognition system (VRS) is increasingly being used, with medical transcriptionists and or "correctionists" providing supplemental editorial services, although there are occasional instances where VRS fully replaces the MT. Natural-language processing takes "automatic" transcription a step further, providing an interpretive function that speech recognition alone does not provide (although MTs do).
In the past, these reportings consisted of very abbreviated handwritten notes that were added in the patient's file for interpretation by the primary physician responsible for the treatment. Ultimately, this mess of handwritten notes and typed reports was consolidated into a single patient file and physically stored along with thousands of other patient records in a wall of filing cabinets in the medical records department. Whenever the need arose to review the records of a specific patient, the patient's file would be retrieved from the filing cabinet and delivered to the requesting physician. To enhance this manual process, many medical record documents were produced in duplicate or triplicate by means of carbon copy.
In recent years, things have changed considerably. Filing cabinets have given way to desktop computers connected to powerful servers where patient records are processed and archived digitally. This digital format allows for immediate remote access by any physician who is authorized to review the patient information. Reports are stored electronically and printed selectively as the need arises. Today, we have very fast computers with many electronic references, and we use the Internet not only for web resources but also as our daily working platform. Technology has gotten so sophisticated that MT services and MT departments work closely with programmers and information systems (IS) staff to stream in voice and accomplish seamless data transfers through network interfaces. In fact, many healthcare providers today are enjoying the benefits of handheld PCs or personal data assistants (PDAs), and are now utilizing software on them for dictation.However, not everything has changed. The conversion of spoken medical language to text is a craft that is difficult to learn and takes time to perfect. Some individuals have a "knack" for it; some will never get it. Technology can and does assist in many ways, but transcription still comes down to people. Even with the transition of MTs to editors for VRS documents, medical-language-interpretation skills will still be imperative for a quality report. MTs welcome this transition as an editor for VRS documents.
The evolution of the transcription dates back to the 1960s. The method was designed to assist in the manufacturing process. The first transcription that was developed in this process was MRP, which is the acronym for Manufacturing Resource Planning, in 1975. This was followed by another advanced version namely MRP2. But none of them yielded the benefit of medical transcription.
However, transcription equipment has changed from manual typewriters to electric typewriters to word processors to computers and from plastic disks and magnetic belts to cassettes and endless loops and digital recordings. Today, voice recognition system (VRS) is increasingly being used, with medical transcriptionists and or "correctionists" providing supplemental editorial services, although there are occasional instances where VRS fully replaces the MT. Natural-language processing takes "automatic" transcription a step further, providing an interpretive function that speech recognition alone does not provide (although MTs do).
In the past, these reportings consisted of very abbreviated handwritten notes that were added in the patient's file for interpretation by the primary physician responsible for the treatment. Ultimately, this mess of handwritten notes and typed reports was consolidated into a single patient file and physically stored along with thousands of other patient records in a wall of filing cabinets in the medical records department. Whenever the need arose to review the records of a specific patient, the patient's file would be retrieved from the filing cabinet and delivered to the requesting physician. To enhance this manual process, many medical record documents were produced in duplicate or triplicate by means of carbon copy.
In recent years, things have changed considerably. Filing cabinets have given way to desktop computers connected to powerful servers where patient records are processed and archived digitally. This digital format allows for immediate remote access by any physician who is authorized to review the patient information. Reports are stored electronically and printed selectively as the need arises. Today, we have very fast computers with many electronic references, and we use the Internet not only for web resources but also as our daily working platform. Technology has gotten so sophisticated that MT services and MT departments work closely with programmers and information systems (IS) staff to stream in voice and accomplish seamless data transfers through network interfaces. In fact, many healthcare providers today are enjoying the benefits of handheld PCs or personal data assistants (PDAs), and are now utilizing software on them for dictation.However, not everything has changed. The conversion of spoken medical language to text is a craft that is difficult to learn and takes time to perfect. Some individuals have a "knack" for it; some will never get it. Technology can and does assist in many ways, but transcription still comes down to people. Even with the transition of MTs to editors for VRS documents, medical-language-interpretation skills will still be imperative for a quality report. MTs welcome this transition as an editor for VRS documents.
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