MT India Newsletter - to subscribe, send an email to:
MTIndia-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Sep 17, 2005

********************************************************

India as a Trusted Sourcing destination

********************************************************
Dear Friends,

In the past eighteen months NASSCOM has been actively engaged on
promoting India as a Trusted Sourcing destination in the global
supply chain of IT services and BPO.

As the Internet becomes all pervasive and terrorists increasingly
resort to using the Internet to illegally fund their covert
activities and strike a blow to peaceful and democratic societies,
it is imperative that our industry proactively address the concerns
of customers, consumers and regulators, of outsourcing mission
critical software development and consumer information to India.

NASSCOM has embarked on a series of initiatives at multiple
levels - these focus on securing our industry and strengthening the
regulatory framework.

* Conduct extensive training seminars to spread awareness of best
practices in information and network security among our member
companies.
* Disseminate information about compliance with relevant
legislation such as Graham Leach Blilley Act, EU Data Protection
Directive, Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act, Fair
Credit Reporting Act to all member companies.
* Engage with Ministry of IT to amend the IT Act around the areas
of technology neutrality of digital signatures, redefining computer
related offences to encompass new types of cyber crimes, and frame
relevant guidelines on data protection.
* Develop a self regulatory organization for our members, lay down
a code of conduct for its members on obtaining, storing, protecting
and using sensitive consumer data, develop a mechanism for
arbitrating, adjudicating, triggering legal oversight, in case of a
breach of the code of conduct.
* Conduct training programs for enforcement authorities in India to
increase awareness of cyber crime, establish best practices for
collecting cyber evidence and conducting cyber forensics. In
Mumbai, over 400 officers have already been trained and this will
be extended to five other cities in India. NASSCOM has already
recruited a senior police officer of DIG rank to drive this
initiative.
* Engage with regulators, media, elected officials, think tanks in
the US and the EU to increase awareness about security and privacy
environment in India.
* Increasing the extent and scope of reference checks for new hires
in the industry.

These initiatives are already enabling Indian companies to
establish a competitive advantage over companies from other
geographies and contributing to a further expansion and deepening
the global supply chain of technology and services.

Ciao!

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

MTs/Editors/QCs Wanted!

++++++++++++++++++++
We are in a rapid growth stage with physician practices and
hospital customers across the US on the lookout for a team
MTs/Editors/QCs that can demonstrate they can consistently produce
client-ready work. Please respond with your resumes.

DigiVox Infoscribe Pvt Ltd
Agrasen Nagar, Opp Atlas Copco
Dapodi, Pune - 411012
admin@...

********************************************************
NEWS AND VIEWS :
*****************
1) MedQuist Relief for Katrina Victims

MedQuist Inc. with nearly 10,000 people spread across the United
States, announced the immediate actions that the company took in
response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including aid from
the company to its people in the areas hardest hit by the
hurricane. The Company's first priority in the days after the
storm was to identify the MedQuist employees and statutory workers
who were in Katrina's path, determine their status and set aside
funds to provide financial assistance to those who lost their
homes.

"We have been concentrating first on finding our people - many of
whom work from home - to provide them with personal financial
assistance if they have lost their home, and, if necessary, with
new computers to help them return to work from wherever they are
staying," says Frank W. Lavelle, MedQuist's president. Company
employees and statutory workers who have been affected by Hurricane
Katrina are encouraged to contact MedQuist's toll-free technical
support line, 1-800-DICTATE.

In addition, MedQuist's clients who need any kind of assistance due
to damage from Katrina should call MedQuist's toll-free technical
support line for clients, 1-888-DICTATE. "Ensuring that our
clients have the ability to continue to provide medical care is of
the highest priority to everyone at MedQuist," adds Lavelle.

In addition to providing personal financial assistance to
MedQuist's employees and statutory workers who have lost their
homes to the storm, MedQuist has also made a donation of $20,000 to
the American Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina disaster relief. The
company is committed to matching the donations of its employees and
statutory workers as well, up to an additional $30,000.

"Since the storm, MedQuist people have been calling and asking what
they can do to help," says Lavelle. "They have offered everything
from places for people to stay to giving some of their paid time
off to our employees who are out of work because of Katrina." In
response to that generosity, MedQuist has set up a "bank" for paid
time off hours so that employees can donate time that will be used
for other employees who have been victims of the storm. "The
outpouring of offers doesn't surprise me a bit," adds Lavelle. "We
are fortunate at MedQuist that we have such wonderful caring people
affiliated with the company who have been looking for ways to help
each other and others in the region affected by Hurricane Katrina."

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-14-200\
5/0004107745&EDATE=

2) ZyDoc Offers Hurricane Katrina Disaster Transcription Support

ZyDoc announced free emergency transcription and medical record
support for healthcare workers and organizations affected by the
Katrina hurricane disaster. With many hospitals in the effected
area temporally closed or operating with limited services, the
infrastructure for ongoing medical records will be severely
limited. Coupled with the anticipated increase in medical services
secondary to the disaster, and difficulties for healthcare
providers and transcriptionists to travel or perform their duties,
ZyDoc anticipates that there maybe an immediate need to offer
transcription services and secure Internet based medical records to
the medical community. The displaced victims will benefit from
secure Internet based records that can be accessible from anywhere.

Jim Maisel, M.D., Chairman of ZyDoc explains, "The ZyDoc technology
platform offers a number of advantages to the disaster area to
overcome infrastructural limitations imposed by service outages and
temporary personnel shortages and displacement of people.
Physicians, hospitals, relief, legal, rescue and transcription
companies can utilize ZyDoc infrastructure and transcription
services starting work within minutes. ZyDoc intends to make our
surplus capacity available immediately to the medical community on
a first-come first-served basis at no charge until services can be
restored."

Steve Koski, CEO and President of ZyDoc explains the operational
aspects of the transcription and medical records service as
follows: "Health-care workers will be able to dictate into handheld
digital recorders or the ZyDoc TelDoc 800 toll-free servers. ZyDoc
will supply fully edited transcription services, usually with
overnight service as available, for these documents or provide
Internet based ASP delivery of the voice files to the
transcriptionists selected by the health-care users. Once
transcribed, documents and voice files will be available
immediately and securely via Internet access from any PC with a
browser and stored for later access. The documents can also be
automatically downloaded and printed to a PC, faxed or made
available to share with authorized caregivers over the Internet.
The ZyDoc carrier class datacenter has proven reliable without
failure over the past two years and was operational even during the
Northeast blackout. We intend to make our surplus capacity
available immediately to the medical community on a first-come
first-served basis at no charge."

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=30806

3) TransJobathon

TransDyne Hyderabad has been conducting a 100 hour non-stop
recruitment marathon, perhaps the first in the World! "We have had
tremendous response in the last 30 hours that the program ran - I
am talking of about 1700 walkins and about 180 job offers made!"
Said Raghu Vasu, Manging Director.

The uniqueness of TransJobathon is that it would be open through
all times of the day, through the 100 hours. It is intended at
making the process of finding a job easy for those who are in
odd-hour shifts and working through long hours to go through the
recruitment process at any time of their convenience.

http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2005/sep/14iycu.htm

4) David Lazarus on Offshore Privacy Laws - From the San
Francisco Chronicle:

Data insecurity: How safe is your personal data when it gets
outsourced abroad by some financial institution, hospital or other
large entity? Not very, according to a report being released today
by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who co-chairs the Congressional Privacy
Caucus. "The truth is disturbing," Markey told me. "More than half
of the countries where outsourcing takes place simply don't make
the grade." Of 20 countries and regions examined, 14 have privacy
laws or procedures that are weaker than those in the United States,
Markey found. These include high-profile outsourcing destinations
such as India, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

He evaluated each location's privacy standards based on criteria
laid out by the European Union, which has far more stringent
privacy controls for businesses than the United States. As an
example of what can go wrong, Markey's report cites my columns on a
clerical worker in Pakistan who a couple of years ago threatened to
post outsourced UCSF patient data online unless she received more
money for her transcription services.

Because of such incidents, Markey has introduced legislation,
HR1653, to help protect U.S. consumers from overseas data-security
breaches and raise awareness about the outsourcing of personal
info. Among other things, the Safeguarding Americans From Exporting
Identification Data Act would require companies to notify customers
of their intent to send personally identifiable information abroad.

"Consumers deserve not only to know where their personal
information is going, but also to have confidence that their
sensitive information is collected, used and stored safely,
wherever in the world that may be," Markey said.

5) Special people come with special skills

Listening is also an important aspect of Jagadeshwari's job. The
27-year-old visually challenged has been working with a medical
transcription firm for nearly a year, after acquiring training at
the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) in
Chennai.

"It's not only important for us to understand foreign accent, we
must also know the medical terminologies. I thoroughly enjoy
learning more about medicine and how doctors in other countries
work."

"Certainly, the expanding economy has been creating opportunities
for people of all sections. With better qualifications and natural
skills like listening, disabled people are slowly taking advantage
of this situation," says Shanti Raghavan, Managing Trustee, Enable
India.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/sep152005/state1834242005914.asp
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P. S. Would you like to share this newsletter with your friends
or post it on your site? Please do! But also be sure to read
below:

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
share this newsletter with your friends or post it on your site
as long as it is left intact with all links unchanged and this
notice.

Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
----------------------------------------------------------------
Please DO NOT reply to this mail id to unsubscribe