Will Voice Recognition Put Medical Transcriptionists Out of Work?
VR is not at all accurate. I see everyone thinking the next thing to sliced bread is the EMR. The physician dictates the record, which then goes to the server. The work is distributed into work pools, and from there the at-home MT is able to sign on and start transcribing. There is more to the story. The EMR programs the MTs sign on to from home are clumsy and limited in thier functional use. The audio is worse than any you can imagine and the programs do not work with most foot pedals. In my case, the footpedal I purchased was 1 of the 2 foot pedals that was supposed to work with the EMR program. After countless hours with the help desk, no foot pedal and no sound. What now? Use the function keys, "a lot of MTs do it this way", in leiu of a foot pedal and make due with inaudible sound. The company I worked for provided no training or instruction at all. You are expected to learn from your mistakes. Do not think your mistakes are not being held against while getting aquainted with the system. Uh, you work from home and you are on your own to figure it out. Time is money. No one has the time to spend answering your questions. Of course, you are a trained professional, so the work you produce is error free. Right. While learning at home by yourself you come to realize the templates do not fit every situation and to modify them screws up the format of the document. Are you used to using Word, spellchecker, autocorrect, expanders? Kiss them good-bye. The EMR programs do not format well with block cut-and-paste from an outside format. Expect no credit for error-free work, the only feedback is negative. Ask all you want. Good luck on getting an answer. Be sure to check and keep good records on your line count because your completed work history (total lines for each job the figures you will be paid from) might lose a few lines here and there...Oh, I almost forgot: Better find the location of the nearest soup line because making a living this way is a joke and do not let anyone convince you otherwise.
Wilma, Sep 17, 2011
