MT India Newsletter

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08 Nov 2003
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Wake up and smell the coffee...

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Dear Friends,

Way back in '98, the commonest question I was asked by MTs was,
"Will speech recognition take over our jobs?" With due diligence I
would answer, "Not in the next decade." Five years later, the
commonest question I am asked is, "Will offshore outsourcing be
banned?"

Across the world, the greatest concerns aired by US MTs were the
compromise in quality, TAT, and privacy. Today the prime concern
is, "Will I lose my job to a cheaper service, from India?" This
concern is a due reflection of the US economy, and actual loss of
jobs in other white collared sectors like IT.

I am referring to a write up by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, THINK-Health,
where she quotes Claudia Tessier, Executive Director, MoHCA ( and
the past and long-term CEO of the AAMT):

"Transcriptionists will increasingly fall short of meeting changing
demands for health care information capture, including greater
accuracy and point-of-care documentation coupled with decision
support software and increased awareness of the value of structured
text and standardized vocabularies"

Claudia goes on to add "A large population of transcriptionists
sees no reason to change, and many are resistant to change. Given
the continuing, huge volume of transcription that cannot be met by
the equally huge number of transcriptionists, they don't recognize
that among the solutions for meeting that demand is designing and
using alternative documentation methods. And, since the average age
of an MT is early to mid-40s, many believe the changes won't happen
rapidly enough to influence their careers before retirement."

Unfortunately, as I see a significant portion of clients harnessing
the powers of computing to decrease transcription requirements -
electronic entry, speech recognition etc.; I do not see any effort
by Indian MTs to keep "in touch." A majority do not know what goes
on beyond their office walls, forget about keeping in touch with
the profession.

Surprisingly, most Indian MTs rely on their employers to take the
lead on their professional development. Many employers do;
nevertheless, it is only fair to expect them to be guided by their
own business interests.

Job security does not stimulate professionalism; but professionals
do carry the responsibility for their jobs on their own shoulders.

Will the professional MT stand up?

We invite our members to discuss this further at the forum:
http://www.mtindia.org/Forum/default.cfm

Chio!

Maj (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) As Economy Gains, Outsourcing Surges

To hear how far and deep the outsourcing of American jobs has
traveled, listen to Christian Mancenon in barely accented English
take an order over the phone for HBO from a man in Lebanon, Ill.
"I'm showing here that you love movies," the 25-year-old Filipino
said, while looking at his computer screen in a low-rise building
in Makati, Manila's business district. Mancenon and 600 others work
for a subsidiary of Philippines Long Distance Telephone Co. that
fields customer calls for Dish Network satellite TV of Littleton,
Colo.

Like India, Pakistan, and Russia, the Philippines has a growing
share of the world's high-tech jobs that have fled high-cost
places, such as Massachusetts and California's Silicon Valley. But
even workers filling customer orders, with few skills, have trouble
competing with the $300 a month Mancenon is paid in the
Philippines, one-fifth of what a worker in the United States would
get for doing the same job.

The spread of outsourcing, beyond hard-hit technology workers, is a
big reason the US economic recovery so far is a jobless one, and
has stayed that way much longer than in previous upturns. A study
released recently from the University of California at Berkeley
says the country lost more than 1 million white-collar jobs in the
1990s and "hundreds of thousands more since the turn of the
century."

Most Philippine outsourcing jobs do not go to software engineers.
The biggest boom comes in lower-skilled technology work like
medical transcription. Consider eData Services, a Manila company
that provides an 800 phone number in the United States for doctors
to dial in and dictate medical information. The eData workers, all
of whom hold a degree related to medical care -- usually nursing or
physical therapy -- type it up. Doctors working for eData part time
act as editors and check the accuracy of the work. Once it is
verified, the transcripts are e-mailed back to doctors' offices in
the United States.

Nonetheless, despite the training in American English and pop
culture, Mancenon estimated that 3 of 10 callers realize they are
speaking to someone outside America: "If they ask us if we're
American, we proudly say 'no.' "

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1102-10.htm

2) Max Healthscribe Ltd receives ISO 9001:2000 certification

Max HealthScribe Limited, received the ISO9001: 2000 certification
for its Management System. This certification formally recognizes
Healthscribe`s focus on Quality which, as spelt out by COO Suresh
Nair "stretches deep below the surface into every facet of the
organization."

Commenting on the certification he said "Obtaining the ISO
Certification is only the first step in building a Customer focused
Quality Management System. We intend using this as a framework to
further refine our delivery systems so that we anticipate and
exceed our customers expectations. The plan is continually to
improve on all facets of management which includes processes,
systems and human resource management and strive towards achieving
excellence in everything that we do. We shall continue our endeavor
to achieve 100% accuracy and quality. We have an accuracy level of
99.2%, when compared to the industry expectation of 98%."

This certification has been obtained from DNV, the reputed
Certification Body for Quality Management Systems.

3) Two suspended for sending threat mails to Heartland

Two employees of Heartland, a multi-national company which is into
medical transcription business, have been charged with sending a
threat-mail to the company.

The suspects are Vasanth and Sunil Subash of Heartland, a US-based
company with its headquarters at Ohio. According to the police, the
Company had received a mail on October 28 in which the sender had
threatened to make the 'patient confidentiality information'
public. As disclosing patient confidentiality information is a
serious breach of business contract, Heartland had earlier
announced Rs 5 lakh award to anyone who could provide it with clues
that would aid in identifying the sender.

In the meantime, Heartland conducted its investigations and on
October 29 traced the mail's originating point to a cyber cafe in
BMT Layout's Vysya Bank Colony. Following this, the Company
officials zeroed in on Vasanth and Sunil as they were spotted near
the cyber cafe. Subsequently, the two were suspended and a police
complaint was lodged against them by Mr V Lakshminarayanan, General
Manager of Heartland's branch in the City.

http://www.karnataka.com/common/indiainfo/more.html

4) 'Huge opportunities in BPO segment'

The future does not exit today. What you see is the early stages of
BPO. The first stage was Medical Transcription (MT), second stage
was call centres where business came in large volumes and got
everybody's attention. Several companies have done phenomenal job
meeting customer demands. Many companies including Citibank, GE,
HSBC, Dell, AOL, etc. jumped into the fray. What we are now
beginning to see in the past one year is genuine back office
outsourcing businesses.

http://sify.com/news/internet/fullstory.php?id=13301520

5) Acusis Announces Vice President of Sales Appointment

Acusis(R), announced that Christopher Caruso will be joining the
Company on November 10, 2003 as Vice President of Sales. In this
senior position, he will use extensive experience derived from his
sales and management past to build on the current short term sales
initiatives as well as the long term sales direction and vision for
the Company.

Caruso will be leading and managing a skilled and growing national
sales force and using his previously demonstrated leadership and
reputation for channeling relevant urgency into the medical
transcription and customer environment. According to Acusis
President and CEO, David Iwinski, Jr., "With such a wide
outsourcing services market opportunity, it can be a challenge to
address every lead possibility, especially when the Company's
excellent reputation precedes it. Chris' communication style along
with his experience in sales force and channel partnership
development will greatly assist the Company to grow. Acusis places
high priority on continuous expansion of our existing and new
customer relationships."

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId
=news_view&newsId=20031107005079&newsLang=en

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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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