Will Electronic Medical Records Limit Your Opportunities in Medical Transcription?

Technology keeps marching on, and that oftenThe advantage of electronic medical records is
strikes fear into those considering medicalthat doctors can enter the data right away. I've
transcription as a career. There's a common fearbeen in a doctor's office where they just had to
that technology will displace medicalclick as appropriate to keep track of basic data
transcriptionists as has happened to so manyabout my visit. It was fairly fast, but there were
other careers.occasional frustrations too when the software
So far it doesn't look to be happening in the nearwasn't quite cooperating or the data took too long
future.to enter.
These fears have been around for years. VoiceBut then the patient information is more easily
recognition software has been a worry for areviewed, a huge advantage.
good number of years now, but its impact hasEven then, many doctors use transcription to
been pretty small. It just isn't good enough tosupplement electronic medical records. The basic
replace a human and probably won't be any timedata is one thing, but sometimes doctors do want
soon.to include more details than can quickly be typed
Electronic medical records are a huge boon tointo their programs.
doctors, but for the report it still uses voiceI don't expect it to take the place of medical
recognition, and for many doctors it's simply tootranscriptionists any time soon, however. Like
much work to be certain that it's accurate. Whenvoice recognition software, some doctors will use
accuracy can be literally life and death for theelectronic records to replace the expense of a
patient, or a matter of proper care for thetranscriptionist. But many will prefer to do what
patient in simpler times, doctors aren't going tothey can do fastest and not want to take the
take a chance on it. They don't enjoy being sued,time to learn a new system.
after all.