MT India Newsletter - http://www.MTIndia.info/

Apr 14, 2007
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Newsletter - medical transcription a less desirable sector for
Philippines?

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Dear Friends,

Analyst Lauro Vives explains why medical transcription is a less
desirable sector for the Philippines - to see the video, go to:
www.mtindia.info

Firstly, US remains the biggest source of demand for medical
transcription services accounting for over 85% of the market. With
only a single source of demand globally, medical transcription
industry will suffer from the pressures of continuingly reducing
costs.

Secondly, the most riskiest sector will always be where labor is
intensive and highly skilled and specialized. Philippines doesn't
have the critical mass of people with potential to meet the MT
industry demands. As a result, retention of people becomes very,
very difficult.

Unless, off course, you want to make training your business
model...

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End of transcript...

I am not too sure, the above factors don't apply to India...

Cheers!

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

"It takes years to become an overnight success! Inch by inch, it's
a cinch."

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NEWS AND VIEWS :
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1) Medical outsourcing debacle?

A growing number of Australian hospitals and medical practices are
outsourcing secretarial work to companies in India, Pakistan and
the Philippines. At least four big Sydney hospitals and hundreds of
doctors are among those using cheap labour to transcribe digitally
recorded verbal notes online. Prices can be half as much as the
Australian rate, or less.

But rivals claim foreign workers, most of whom do not have English
as their first language, are more prone to making dangerous
mistakes and may be unable to keep patients' private details
secure.

State and Commonwealth laws ban the sending of medical information
overseas unless privacy protection is of the same standard as in
Australia. Among possible solutions were making it mandatory for
transcription companies to declare if they were sending medical
files overseas or prosecuting those who sent information to places
with inadequate protection.

Lyndie Arkell, chief executive of OzeScribe, described the quality
of overseas transcriptions as "absolutely terrible''. "There is a
large industry sending work to India because there are doctors who
want cheaper transcriptions,'' she said. "But they are violating
privacy laws and disrespecting their patients' privacy. I don't
think patients go to their doctors thinking their records are going
to end up in India.'' Mistakes and mix-ups in medical terminology
are common among overseas transcribers who cannot understand
Australian accents, she warned. She told how overseas transcription
companies had left leaflets at hospitals offering to do work for 8c
a line, compared with an average Australian rate of 27c.

Raji Swaminathan runs Sydney-based Professional Transcription
Solutions, which has 50 staff at a centre in Chennai, India, and
has four big Sydney hospitals and more than 150 doctors signed up
to her service. Ms Swaminathan insists her staff work for an
Australian company and are properly trained to understand
Australian accents.

"All staff sign confidentiality agreements for me,'' she said.

http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/story/0,,21556989-5001021,00.html

2) Seaview, US firm ink new pact

Targeting higher volumes in healthcare documentation services and
bringing in newer areas of healthcare solutions under its fold,
Thiruvananthapuram-based BPO player Seaview Support Systems has
entered into new contracts with UK-based outsourcing major DScribe.

Elaborating on the fresh contracts with DScribe, Raju Harilal, CEO,
Seaview Support Systems, said that "the deal would help Seaview
make its foray into the fields of medical billing and
tele-radiology soon."

Meanwhile, DScribe expects its outsourcing volumes to Seaview to
double in the next two months, according to the UK company's
managing director FCA Hamilton.

Seaview has also announced a tie-up with SBI Life to launch a
pension plan for all its employees. Harilal said with this tie-up,
over 300 employees at Seaview would be provided savings benefit
with a secure retirement plan. This is perhaps for the first time a
private sector company based in the state capital is coming out
with a pension plan for its staffers, he added.

Aimed at addressing attrition and to inspire its largely young
workforce to start the habit of savings, the pension plan would
ensure that the periodical savings are carefully preserved with
full guarantee of the corpus, and will be paid back with returns
and entitled bonus as annuity payments at the time of retirement,
the Seaview CEO added.

http://www.business-standard.com/iceworld/storypage.php?leftnm=8&subLeft=2&chklo\
gin=N&autono=280793&tab=r

3) Outsourcing of UK hospital records to India opposed

Visions of deaths caused by possible mistakes made by medical
secretaries in India have been raised to prevent transcription work
in British hospitals from being outsourced to India and the
Philippines. Several hospital trusts of the National Health Service
(NHS) have outsourced medical transcription work to India, with
more considering the option to cut budgetary deficits. The moves
have prompted a welter of protests from medical secretaries and
unions.

The latest to face opposition to outsourcing medical transcription
to India is the NHS Southport and Ormskirk Trust, which is battling
to reduce a 15 million pound deficit. Its plans to outsource work
to India have prompted unions and medical secretaries to raise the
prospect of patients in Britain dying due to mistakes by medical
secretaries in India.

The British Society of Medical Secretaries (BSMS) has warned that
outsourcing work to India could result in deaths. Kathy Perkins,
chairperson of the BSMS, said: "Inevitably, there will be a patient
death directly attributable to the wrongful interpretation of a
crucial word or drug dosage by an outsourced worker unfamiliar with
the language or terminology.

"This will cause an outcry and the emphasis will shift back to
requiring medical transcription by trained medical secretaries. But
the damage will have been done. The majority of medical secretaries
will either have been made redundant or left the service. British
medical secretaries aim for 99.8 per cent accuracy in
transcriptions."

Reports from Liverpool say that medical secretaries in the trust
are furious on being asked to describe how they did their jobs to
see if the work could be transferred to India and the Philippines.

Southport's Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh described the plans as
'barking mad', and said: "The one thing there needs to be in any
good hospital is a close connection between the administrative and
the clerical staff. "If you have them in two different places, on
different continents then it's going to be very hard to achieve."

A spokesperson for the trust insisted that outsourcing
transcription to India was only one option they may consider in a
bid to cut costs. Clare Vattev, business manager at the Trust,
said: "We will be looking at a number of options and the use of
digital dictation and out-sourced transcribing may be considered.

"The trust is currently reviewing its secretarial functions with a
view to improving both the efficiency and timeliness of its
communications."

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1090372

4) Icac seeks MT training for gamers!

Online gamers are potential medical transcriptionists and learn
about the profession inside Internet cafes, an official of the
Internet Café Association of Cebu (Icac) said. Felix Cogal, Icac
president said Icac, a group of local Internet café operators, are
in negotiations with Total Transcription Solutions Inc. (TTSI), a
medical transcription (MT)-training center that enables Internet
cafes to become an "extended laboratory" for MT students.

He said TTSI will provide Internet cafes with MT Tutor Online
prepaid cards and equip the cafes with the necessary software to
run the online tutorial. However, Cogal said cyber café operators
may also invest in additional "foot pedals" or controls that will
further enhance the tutorials.

While the tutorials are meant for MT students, online gamers can
take advantage of the software by purchasing a prepaid card,
learning the modules and participating in the exercises, he said.
"This will slowly convert online gamers as medical
transcriptionists," said Cogal, adding that because online exams
are monitored, those who perform better have a bigger chance of
getting hired automatically.

Due to limited manpower, MT training centers are tapping Internet
cafes and the academe to attract more Filipinos to become
transcriptionists. "This thing is good for the younger generation
because it is both fun, since it follows an online game concept, is
and educational. It also gives them a bigger chance to land a job,"
he said. Cogal also said the proposed joint venture with TTSI will
be revenue-generating for Internet café operators.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/ceb/2007/04/13/bus/icac.seeks.mt.training.for.g\
amers..html

5) African countries vie for outsourcing business

In November 2005, Ghana commissioned Hewitt Associates of India to
probe the country's key strengths and weaknesses in the global
services sector. The analysis of Ghana, as benchmarked against 11
established and emerging offshore international and regional
destinations, showed that the country scored high on the size of
its English-speaking population and competitive labor costs.
However, it ranked poorly on the quality of infrastructure and
demonstrated government focus.

Overall, there is significant potential for Ghana to scale up
offshoring activities and position itself in niche markets of the
BPO sector. The Hewitt study recommended that the key vertical
market niches Ghana should focus on include medical transcription,
coding, billing, data processing and customer contact processes.
The government of Ghana subsequently requested the World Bank
Group's support in developing an IT-enabled services sector and was
given a $40 million credit.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/09/HNafricanoutsourcing_1.html
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The MTIndia Team
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