Medical transcription or MT is an allied profession that involves converting or transcribing voice recorded reports of physicians into text format. These professionals are called medical transcribers or medical transcriptionists.
The history of medical transcription dates back to the very beginning of medical care. Back then, medical care practitioners had thought to put on record the conditions of their patients and what methods they implemented for the cure of these patients all for the purpose of study in medical science. These are evident in the earliest forms of documentations found in walls of caves, wooden tablets, metal tablets, and hieroglyphs that eventually evolved into temple walls, parchment, paper and most recently electronics. The evolution of medical transcription went along with the changing times as well as the different recording devices invented. At this period, the physicians themselves were the ones putting the data into record.
By the 1900's, upon the standardization of medical research, medical stenographers came into the picture by taking the dictations of the doctors into shorthand writing. It became imperative at this time that medical data be kept in files and stored in filing cabinets and storage rooms of hospitals. Physicians may view these files whenever the need arises and it came to a point when several carbon copies of these files were made in order to have an easier access.
Over the years, computers became accessible to the general public and the desktop computers eventually replaced the filing cabinets and storage rooms. Instead of handwritten records, data became electronic files that are printed out only when the data is being needed making the process more concise.
The 21'st century became a more productive year for medical transcription as a career. Technology has become more sophisticated and the voice recognition system and speech-to-text system were developed. These electronic systems have aided well in the process of acquiring the medical notes. Though these systems had the ability of translating voice into words, its capabilities are still limited. It still takes human skill to understand informal English language, slang, comments, and even expressions made by the physicians upon recording their data, thus the rise of medical transcription courses.
Training courses were made for medical transcribers and they had more structure in learning medical terminology, communication and memory skills, above average typing skills and other requirements needed to have a career on medical transcription. Both the technology advancement and MT training courses greatly improved medical transcription itself contributing greatly to the future of medical study.
The history of medical transcription dates back to the very beginning of medical care. Back then, medical care practitioners had thought to put on record the conditions of their patients and what methods they implemented for the cure of these patients all for the purpose of study in medical science. These are evident in the earliest forms of documentations found in walls of caves, wooden tablets, metal tablets, and hieroglyphs that eventually evolved into temple walls, parchment, paper and most recently electronics. The evolution of medical transcription went along with the changing times as well as the different recording devices invented. At this period, the physicians themselves were the ones putting the data into record.
By the 1900's, upon the standardization of medical research, medical stenographers came into the picture by taking the dictations of the doctors into shorthand writing. It became imperative at this time that medical data be kept in files and stored in filing cabinets and storage rooms of hospitals. Physicians may view these files whenever the need arises and it came to a point when several carbon copies of these files were made in order to have an easier access.
Over the years, computers became accessible to the general public and the desktop computers eventually replaced the filing cabinets and storage rooms. Instead of handwritten records, data became electronic files that are printed out only when the data is being needed making the process more concise.
The 21'st century became a more productive year for medical transcription as a career. Technology has become more sophisticated and the voice recognition system and speech-to-text system were developed. These electronic systems have aided well in the process of acquiring the medical notes. Though these systems had the ability of translating voice into words, its capabilities are still limited. It still takes human skill to understand informal English language, slang, comments, and even expressions made by the physicians upon recording their data, thus the rise of medical transcription courses.
Training courses were made for medical transcribers and they had more structure in learning medical terminology, communication and memory skills, above average typing skills and other requirements needed to have a career on medical transcription. Both the technology advancement and MT training courses greatly improved medical transcription itself contributing greatly to the future of medical study.
I found your article very interesting. You do have one mistake. When you stated, "Training courses were made for medical transcribers," you were in error. There can be no courses for machines, as that is what medical transcribers are (the machine that transcriptionists used to use to perform their jobs). Training courses were made for medical transcriptionists is the proper terminology when describing the people performing the job.
Sincerely,
Ava Marie George, AHDI Director
hi, nice article.keep it up.