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26 Jun 2004

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Minimum required practices ....

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Dear Friends,

The Financial Services Technology Consortium has an initiative to
establish minimum required practices for offshore outsourcing. A
report, due at year's end, will recommend how organizations can
manage risks consistently, regardless of where data is. The group
aims to create standards for country-risk assessment and
monitoring; background checks of workers; and, potentially, a
certification program for offshore professionals.

Organizations can escape some HIPAA privacy requirements if they
de-identify records. Moreover, de-identification will become more
important as the White House fosters e-health records. All
organizations, then, will have an incentive to use de-identified
data whenever possible to reduce the risk of accidental or
malicious releases of sensitive information.

However, an Illinois court ruled that although an expert could
re-identify records from the state's cancer registry, it was still
hard to do and the state should release the records. The June 9
decision in The Southern Illinoisan v. Department of Health has
roiled policymakers, researchers and data managers and raises new
questions over what de-identification means.

A discussion of the case can be found here:
http://www.melamedia.com/Illinois_de-id_case.pdf

I wonder how many offshore outsourcing entities are stripping off
PHI, to protect the medical records?

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) Anti-BPO steps: what to worry about

Outsourcing may be accounting for only 9% of US job losses and
instead of Indians in Bangalore, the immigrants may be taking 30%
of all US jobs, but thanks to the imminent US elections, a backlash
against outsourcing remains an issue which continues to trouble US
and Indian companies alike.

Taken up by Presidential candidate John Kerry and then President
Bush in right earnest, the US states have also come up with a
plethora of legislations to fight outsourcing by American states if
not the companies.

Both California and Arizona have introduced bills that would make
it illegal for health-care providers to send their patients'
records outside the US for transcription, and California would also
restrict companies from sending individuals' financial data
offshore.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/744112.cms

2) US healthcare market big business for Indian BPO firms

Indian Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies will be able to
corner $800 million of business from US healthcare market by 2005,
according to industry body Nasscom.

"US healthcare industry spent close to $40 billion on Information
Technology in 2003, a jump of seven per cent over previous year.
Managed care companies in US will consider Indian BPO vendors due
to competitive business environment and technological and
legislative changes," Nasscom said quoting analysts.

"The more advanced areas of healthcare such as imaging, disease
management and claims processing offer a big opportunity to Indian
IT enabled Services firms," according to Nasscom.

India was quick to plunge into ITeS solutions for the healthcare
industry, particularly, the US healthcare sector. There was a major
move during the early days of Indian ITeS revolution towards
providing medical transcription services to hospitals and
healthcare centres in the US.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/735395.cms

3) MT from New Zealand!

Although head-quartered in Auckland, Interscribe has no New Zealand
customers - concentrating instead on the booming American market
for medical transcription services. Its service works like this;
Interscribe's trained medical transcriptionists log into a website
where doctors in the United States have uploaded voice files of
their patient consultation reports. Typically the files will
include information about the patient's past and current health
concerns, and the findings of the physician's physical examination.
The Interscribe staff then transcribe the doctor's reports, and the
transcription is posted on the site for the US-based medical staff
to action.

While much US IT work has been outsourced to countries like India
in recent years, Interscribe's advantage in the medical
transcription industry, is that its staff speak English as a first
language - giving its American clients greater confidence as to the
accuracy of their transcriptions.

http://www.istart.co.nz/index/HM20/AS3/AR26009

4) ChartLogic, Inc. Selects ScanSoft's Dragon NaturallySpeaking

Working closely with physicians, ChartLogic leveraged the Dragon
NaturallySpeaking 7 SDK to create a comprehensive, voice-directed
electronic medical chart. ChartLogic's solution provides physicians
with an accurate, easy-to-use alternative to paper charts that
enables physicians to save time and money - resulting in more time
to focus on patient care. Traditional charts, requiring
handwriting, dictation or manual transcription, are time consuming
and expensive, and are often not completed by the physician until
the end of the examination day. With ChartLogic, physicians can
complete their charts in less than 60 seconds at the end of each
patient visit - resulting in substantial time savings and more
accurate patient notes.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Jun/1049577.htm

5) Nasdaq to delist MedQuist

The determination to delist the medical transcription company's
common stock was made following a April 29 hearing before Nasdaq's
listing qualifications panel, during which MedQuist sought --
unsuccessfully -- a temporary exception to requirements that the
company be current in its annual and quarterly financial
performance filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

http://philadelphia.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2004/06/14
/daily16.html?jst=b_ln_hl

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The MTIndia Team
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