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Mar 19, 2005
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ADVERTISEMENT:
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Krypton, one of the oldest Medical Transcription Production Units
in Eastern India is on the lookout for MTs and QAs to expand their
operations in Kolkata. We need quality MTs and QAs. Remuneration
package linked to skill and productivity. Kolkatan's wishing to
return back will be warmly welcomed. A long term mutually
beneficial relationship, is our motto and goal.

Apply in confidence, to:

Krypton Infotech Limited
BF-173, Sector-1, Saltlake
Kolkata-700064
Phone: 33-23592717/ 23592727
email: krypton@...

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MT in India - A Linguistic Overview

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Dear Friends,

Excerpts from an article by M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D., Bethany
College of Missions, Bloomington, MN, USA.

<since the 1960s, doctors, whose mother tongue is not English, have
been employed increasingly by hospitals in the United States, and
other western nations. While their competence in the medical
profession may not be questioned, their competence of the English
language has been a matter for humorous remarks in various
publications and among their mother tongue English-speaking
colleagues>

<It is too early to say that many of the young people employed as
medical transcriptionists in India would dedicate themselves to
this profession as their life-long career. Most of these young
people have under graduate and post-graduate degrees, especially in
science, and they really do not have to pay anything to train
themselves to be medical transcriptionists. Often they learn the
trade on the job, and their original investment is "good" English
competence and some science background>

<The major problem these young people face relates to the correct
deciphering of the dictated messages. Their exposure to native
English is minimal, mostly through the Hollywood movies, and the
BBC broadcasts>

<They do communicate with each other and with their parents and
relatives (if they are from major metropolitan cities, and if they
belong to families with English education) via English, but then
their English style is typically Indian. Idiomatic expressions are
characteristically Indian, with a good sprinkling of idioms from
the Victorian age, etc. They are very good in written expressions,
even though such expressions may be rather involved, and may follow
the syntactic patterns of olden days.

Their English language textbooks have been heavily impacted by
their cultural elements, with stories from their own mythologies.
Their knowledge of current spoken English and current simple and
plain written English is rather not outstanding.>

<They have internalized a phonological pattern of English that is
not identical to that of the native English speakers. Their
phonological pattern of English gives them keys to pronunciation,
following its own rules. The native speakers have a slightly
different pattern, with several special features such as stress,
stress reduction, vowel reduction, etc. And the mother tongue users
can intuitively apply such patterns to the new word they come
across. On the other hand, our Indian young people have their own
phonological patterns which they use to interpret and reproduce a
new word they come across in the dictated passages.>

<In late 1960s and during 1970s, university departments of English
and Linguistics in India did some intensive contrastive linguistic
studies between Indian languages and English, and between various
Indian languages. It will be a good thing to look into such studies
again, and seek to identify the problems that confront the young
Indian medical transcriptionists.

For example, the auditory and productive skills relating to
contrasts such as r and l, s, sh, and S, between f and ph, even
between p and b, between w and v, etc., need to be strengthened. A
sensitivity to the syllabification process in English, related
problems of spelling, placement or avoidance or reduction of stress
on words, ability to hear unstressed syllables, recognize the
patter of vowel reduction, the distinction between the voiceless
and voiced inter-dental fricatives, the pluralization processes of
English, specific gender distinctions normally adopted in native
English, morphological processes that have a bearing on the
phonological usage, etc. need to be revisited and drilled. Auditory
comprehension holds the key, but auditory comprehension is related
also to the other language skills.>

To read the entire article:
http://www.languageinindia.com/sep2004/medicaltranscription1.html

On the subject of language development, the following article also
gives a broad but relevant overview:
English Language Teaching in India: A Brief Historical and Current
Overview
http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/March_05_dg.doc

Ciao!

Maj (Dr) Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@...
MT India ~ www.mtindia.org
"The Community of MT Professionals"

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) BPO job aspirants face common entrance test

Aspiring BPO recruits will soon need to clear an entrance test.
Nasscom and the information technology industry have finally worked
out a screening mechanism for call centre recruits. The test,
likely to be taken up by more than 500,000 candidates annually,
will be conducted by a governing council.

"The test, which is primarily for entry level candidates, will look
for English skills, keyboard and computer skills, process skills
and personality attributes. These are crucial for most call centre
and transaction processing jobs," Mehta said.

"With the test in place, BPO companies will be able to cut their
recruitment costs by 40 to 50 per cent as they will need to
interview only those who have passed the test", Mehta said.

"For the candidates, it will result in saving costs and efforts.
This is because, on passing the test, they will be certified and
their chances of getting hired will improve." Mehta said adding
that at present, of every 100 candidates that apply for BPO jobs,
about 5 get hired.

For testing English skills, candidates need to take a voice test
which will have to be sent by them as an audio file over the
Internet. The written test will have multiple choice components on
the lines of competitive exams. The test will be available
throughout the year and will be for a nominal fee.

http://www.business-standard.com/iceworld/storypage_link.php?chklogin=N&autono=1\
83746&lselect=2&leftnm=lmnu9&leftindx=9

2) MedLink VPN to Develop EHR Solution in Conjunction With Apollo

Western Media Group Corporation announced that pursuant to its
agreement with Apollo Health Street Limited, MedLink VPN (a wholly
owned subsidiary of Western Media Group Corporation) has chosen
Apollo Health Street Limited as its technology services partner for
the MedLink EHR (Electronic Health Record) LaserCard which will be
launched as part of the MedLink's VPN suite of services. The
agreement called for a multi phase development of the product that
will involve increased development and enhancements including an
expanded dedicated team of developers, as well as customer support
for the product.

Konrad Kim, Chief Technology Officer of Western Media Group stated,
"We are very excited at the opportunity to work with Apollo Health
Street Limited and utilize their wealth of expertise and knowledge
on medical information technology. The additional development to
the MedLink VPN EHR will enable the MedLink VPN to compete on a
national level as a national solution to the EHR standards being
set in place by the recent Bush administration mandate to
centralize and standardize data as a national EHR format."

The LaserCard optical memory card developed by LaserCard
Corporation (Nasdaq: LCRD) and offered in conjunction with the
MedLink VPN offers a secure and cost effective solution to bridge
the information gap. Patients carry their own electronic patient
record or dataset to the participating clinic, physician or
provider without additional communication hardware or file transfer
costs. In any health care setting, the optical memory card can
transport secure, partial or complete electronic patient records,
helping to expedite care, reduce costs, and perhaps save lives.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/Mar/1125975.htm

3) SPI Technology opens medical transcription facility

SPI Technologies Inc., one of the world's leading business process
outsourcing (BPO) service providers, formally inaugurated its
medical transcription facility in Cebu last week. The facility is
located at Asiatown IT Park and has over 500 seats. Initially, SPI
has hired 150 employees with medical backgrounds for its Cebu
center. SPI Technologies Inc. president and chief executive officer
Ernest Cu revealed that they are now in a "very aggressive hiring
mode."

Cu also announced that SPI is pursuing a P3-billion expansion plan
this year to extend its service lines and production capabilities
through organic growth, mergers and acquisitions in the United
States and Asia. It recently inked an agreement to buy the medical
transcription business of India-based KG Information Services
Private Limited located in Coimbatore, which has a capacity of 800
seats.

"SPI is an excellent model why you should go outsourcing in the
Philippines. It is one of the few companies (that) have really
grown horizontally in terms of services that it is offering," said
Secretary Virgilio Peña, Chairman of the Commission on ICT (CICT).
He also supported SPI on its partnership with the Indian company.

He explained that the Philippines should look at India as a partner
and not as a competitor because with the partnership, the
Philippines could move much faster and take advantage of the market
assets that India already has globally.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2005/03/16/bus/spi.technology.opens.medical\
.transcription.facility..html

4) Perk Wise

Today, an office can no longer be considered just a business
working space. It is the second living space of its occupants,-
maintains Philips Innovation ceo Bob Hoekstra. The seven-storey,
1.58 lakh sq ft premises of the company, a subsidiary of Philips
Semiconductors International, on Old Madras Road, has incorporated
the thought in its building design as well. The extensive use of
glass, veneer surfaces, steel, perforated metal sheets, granite,
marble and carpets is complemented by a specific theme for each
floor pertaining to issues like health, culture and so on. One
floor is exclusively devoted to housing a cafeteria, a medical
room, an atm and a gym. Despite the conducive working environment,
the firm encourages employees to work light as the day wears out
and spend more time with their families.

Such sensibilities, the companies believe, will hold them in good
stead. And they do have a point. As Gartner Inc, a research and
management consulting firm, points out, disillusionment, not
recession, is the biggest threat that Asia's business face in the
coming quarter. More and more Asian businesses, it says, are
falling prey to such disillusionment following the Infotech Chief
Technology Officer John Azariah, -the need to keep intellectual
assets in good shape is all important-. So whether it is
Healthscribe, India's largest medical transcription company,
organising fun events on its production floors, call centre
Customer Asset ensuring that a top management employee provides
company and entertainment to those on the night shift or telecom
software firm Subex Systems hosting dinners for its employees'
parents, the basic objective is to keep the workers+ spirits up.

http://www.india-today.com/webexclusive/dispatch/20011104/stephen.html

5) Millionaire Dreams in Pakistan?

Welcome to the world of outsourcing, the buzz word that's inspiring
many educated middle-class white-collar workers, especially from
the South Asian region such as Pakistan, to dream of making a
million rupees, if not dollars, in a short time.

Currently, India leads the pack in cashing in from this sector,
earning 3.5 billion dollars in revenues last year. Comparatively,
Pakistan appears as a weak blip on the outsourcing radar screen. At
the moment it seems the only advantage we have over India is our
relatively better English accents, a tag line that has been drummed
to death by all parties concerned. But if we are to generate
100,000 agents in the next three to five years, we can't use it as
our only trump card. India is set to become the world's largest
English-speaking force by the year 2010, and with its accent
reduction training centres we'll soon lose that advantage too. The
trick is to concentrate on developing long-term strategies.

Another important thing to realise is that we aren't in a
technology war with India; we can't be, since they have already won
it. So, since you can't beat them, it would be savvy to join them
instead. Collaborations will be of benefit to both parties, more so
for Pakistan.

http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsMar2005/spreport2005.htm
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All original content of this newsletter is © Copyright 1998-2005
Mediweb Infotech Pvt. Ltd. All cited articles are copyright of
their authors and/or respective publications. Please feel free to
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as long as it is left intact with all links unchanged and this
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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