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04 Sept 2004

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BBC program - Career kya karoon? MT!

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Dear Friends,

BBC Hindi Service is running a program on the career prospects and job
opportunities for MTs in India. The first part was run on Saturday at 6.30
am, in the program 'Aaj ke din'.

For those who missed the program, you will find it uploaded here:
http://www.mtindia.org/bbc

For non hindi speakers, all relevant points discussed are well covered in
our FAQ section, so a complete transcript is not indicated here.

But just to clarify, I am reiterating the facts and figures I have quoted,
in English:

- Ten year old Industry.
- Total number of MTSOs in India: 350
- Total industry turnover, last fiscal: Over 450 crores INR
- Expected growth this fiscal: 50-60%
- Estimated new MTs required by the Industry this fiscal: About 8,000

Please keep a close watch on the program, and you will be hearing some MTs
next week, talking about their routine, work schedule, growth prospects, and
educational requirements.

You can also enquire directly to BBC by email @ hindi.letters@...,
with the subject line "Career kya karoon?"

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) Back from the depths?

Once considered a booming sector, medical transcription went bust much
sooner than expected, for various reasons. However, things are shaping up
now to put the industry back on track. Two key factors are fuelling the
recovery - a spurt in healthcare spending in the US and a simultaneous
shrinking of MT skill sets in that country. Estimates indicate that the US
healthcare market is growing at between 10-15 per cent annually as a result
of increase in its ageing populace. At the same time, medical transcription
skill sets are shrinking in the US at around five per cent. Cash-strapped US
hospitals are looking to offshore medical transcription services so they can
cut costs, thus throwing up a big growth opportunity for vendors from
countries such as India, the Philippines and Pakistan.

MT service providers in the domestic market are bullish on the near-term
prospects. The exports of medical transcription services are estimated to be
between $50-100 million annually, and are poised to grow at around 50 per
cent. And considering that Indian vendors cater to a fraction of the
$6-billion industry, the market potential is immense.

Players in the highly fragmented Indian MT industry are busy trying to get
their act together to make the best use of the re-emerging opportunity.
Recently, several MT firms in Bangalore came together to form a
self-regulatory body - the Indian Medical Transcription Industry Association
(IMTIA). This aims at helping the sector tackle industry-related issues and
create awareness about best practices. The objective is to formalise and
regulate a sector that, to date, has remained largely unorganised and
unprotected by data protection laws, says George Ollapally, Country
Director, DTS Information Systems Private Ltd, and Secretary of IMTIA.

As the Indian medical transcription industry comes out of the dumps and
looks to latch on to the next phase of growth, it is important to analyse
what caused the downturn in the first place. Industry observers cite several
reasons, the key ones include the lack of entrepreneurial experience, and
the entry of some fly-by-night operators that caused the downfall of the
industry. Considered a sunrise industry, medical transcription caught the
fancy of Indian entrepreneurs in the second half of the last decade. As the
Indian IT sector started inching towards the boom period in the late 1990s,
entrepreneurs who were not part of the IT boom jumped onto the MT bandwagon,
taking it for an easy route to a fast buck. As a result, many small MT
centres sprang up in pockets such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune,
Mumbai and Coimbatore. So also training centres mushroomed to feed the
manpower needs of these centres. However, most of these entrepreneurs did
not have an in-depth understanding of the sector, and also no clue as to how
they could tap the US healthcare market. To add to the problem, some of
these players also initiated a price war by undercutting each other and
started offering services at unrealistically low prices. While the deals
were won, many of the vendors couldn't keep up the delivery schedules,
resulting in erosion of credibility. Many of the smaller units were forced
to shut shop and MT in India fizzled out.

It is estimated that bigger firms invest anywhere between Rs 60,000 and Rs 1
lakh on training each transcriptionist, while smaller firms invest slightly
less than that. The gestation period in this sector is very high, say
between nine months and a year, and companies need to have solid financial
backing before they can start earning revenues, Nair says. The small
players, for most part, did not have adequate financial backing,
precipitating the slump.

A major objective of the IMTIA is to ensure that there is information flow
between the industry players. Capacity constraint is another hurdle faced by
the Indian MT industry as it vies for the same skill sets that the booming
business process outsourcing (BPO) sector is gunning for. The association
aims to create awareness about MT as a viable long-term career option, says
Nair.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2004/08/30/stories/2004083000060100.htm

2) Offshoring: Don't shoot the messenger

India's image as a paragon of outsourcing took a severe beating last week
after revelations of offshoring jobs gone awry shook the entire medical
fraternity in the United Kingdom.

Facing an acute shortage of medical transcribers, eight hospitals in London
decided to outsource transcription services. Instructions and letters were
dictated into digital voice recorders and the files forwarded to a company
called Omnimedical, which would then send the recordings to a team of
transcribers in India.

On the surface, it may seem like the onus for patient safety lies in
Omnimedical's hands but it is the hospitals which should be held
accountable. They say the prime motivation behind outsourcing the workload
is to provide better service to patients but they fail to address the
ramifications of such a move. The root cause behind the dearth of medical
secretaries--a combination of low wages and dim career growth--has been
skirted in favor of offshoring, the magic short-term solution.

This is the peril of outsourcing to India, some camps might say. What if the
destination was Australia, Scotland or the United States? Would that have
made any difference? Organizations which compromise on language and local
knowledge will eventually pay the price. The question is at whose expense.

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107_2-5322354.html

3) Keep outsourcing out of US politics

Being the election year in the US, there is a shrill tone in the voices on
outsourcing, mostly from the Democrats, to gain political mileage. John
Edwards, the vice-presidential candidate, expectedly thundered during the
recent Democratic Party convention held in Boston that: "We are going to get
rid of tax cuts for companies which are outsourcing jobs".

On his part, the presidential nominee, John Kerry, decried the practice of
sending jobs overseas and promised suitable incentives for the companies
that retain the jobs within American shores. He has pledged that he will
create 10 million new jobs in the US in four years by fighting against
outsourcing. The Republicans too, not to lose out on this issue, are making
supportive noises.

There is a genuine fear among the white-collared workers in US, when he
reads about transfer of routine jobs such as data processing, accounting and
pay-roll management, software publishing, telephone call centres, computer
system designs and medical transcription. He is alarmed that that
outsourcing is sucking up all jobs and rendering people jobless.

As if to play upon this sentiment, there are a number of studies warning of
heavy loss of jobs in the US if the trend is not arrested. Instead of
discounting such inflated figures and consequent alarmist views, the
politicians, aware of the vote potential of this scare, actually magnify it.
The political parties instead of explaining the benefits of outsourcing to
the economy, stress only on the negative aspects.

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=13551867

4) Home is where the work is

A virtual office is not too far away into the future. Working from home is
becoming more a reality than before.

Way back in 2002, it was the medical transcription companies offering home
options. HealthScribe, a leading medical transcription firm, has now over a
100 employees working from their homes. In Bangalore alone there are over 60
employees who have chosen this option.

Says Prasenjit Ganguly, VP HR, HealthScribe India, "This option is available
to every employee once they have undergone complete training and have worked
for a year after that. They also have to display very good skills and an
independent streak to work without the guidance of team leaders and
seniors."

Today, there are more and more takers for home-based working options
especially women who are playing a dual role of managing a home and a
career. IBM India too has been having this option of working from home since
it started operations in India but now, the trend is more noticeable.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/827293.cms

5) Displaced workers look to health care industry for jobs

Laid-off workers and people seeking second careers in south-central
Pennsylvania are turning to the health care industry for jobs. "What's
happening in health care right now is we have high interest, but you do need
technical training ... and the schools that provide technical education
can't keep up with the demand," said Doreen Meeker, a case manager at York
County Career Link.

Steve Simon, director of employment at WellSpan Health, said he hopes people
waiting for training don't lose interest. "I don't know if we've maximized
yet the abilities of technology," Simon said. "So we're sort of at the
height of our staffing required to take care of a patient."

He pointed to the potential of voice recognition technology to reduce
transcription by staff of doctors' oral notes and automated patient records.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/9467819.htm?1c

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Thank you for your interest in MT India!

The MTIndia Team
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