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May 10, 2006
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Bangalore Meet - A NASSCOM - AAMT initiative
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Dear Friends,
There has arisen a few misconceptions about the above meet, I'll try to
clear them:
1. NASSCOM India ITES-BPO Strategy Summit 2006, will hold a workshop on
Medical Transcription Outsourcing - Opportunities and Challenges -
in association with AAMT.
http://www.nasscom.org/eventdetails.asp?id=486&head_id=1101
This is scheduled and is going to take place. MTIndia.org is not taking
registrations for this event. To register for the NASSCOM meet, please click
on the link above. The early bird discount is until May 15th.
2. What is being proposed, is to have another meet at Bangalore specifically
directed towards practitioner MTs and invite Peter Preziosi, Executive
Director, AAMT to participate in that event. They main agenda would be
directed at discussing the future of medical transcription as a career
prospect. Please note that this is not an alternative event being planned to
the NASSCOM meet, but one with a different perspective altogether. This is
the one we are running a survey for. Organizing this meet will entirely
depend on the response and enthusiasm from practitioner MTs in participating
in such a career prospect meet with the Executive Director of AAMT. The
response to the survey until now has been essentially from outstation MTs.
Unfortunately, it will turn out to be a logistic nightmare to hold an event
of this stature at Bangalore, if participants are essentially from
outstation.
So friends, I am keeping the survey open until this weekend. The date June
8th, between 6-8 pm (could be postponed by an hour).
Registration fees will be Rs. 200.
Please send an email to survey@mtindia.org , if you are interested in
participating. Please enclose the following details about yourself:
Name:
Company Name:
City:
Suggestions: (Keep it brief, please)
And Bangalore MTs, you do need to wake up and participate in the survey.
Without a good response, this event just doesn't happen.
Ciao!
Dr Amit Chatterjee, SM
Strategist / Founder ~ mailto:amit@mtindia.org
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.
********************************************************
ADVERTISEMENT:
****************
ELICO - TLs/Proofers/Editors/QA/QC wanted
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TLs/Proofers/Editors/QA/QC to meet its growing demand.
The candidate should have minimum 4-5 years of experience in Transcription
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Candidates earning less than Rs.15000/- need not apply. Connect with us
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web site: elicobpo.com
********************************************************
NEWS AND VIEWS :
*****************
1) Firm's focus is growth, Manor Care CEO tells shareholders, to exit
medical-transcription
Meanwhile, the company issued a federal layoff notice this week that it will
idle 102 workers in its Heartland Information Services medical-transcription
unit. Seven employees are in Toledo. A company spokesman said the cuts will
occur in early July.
The firm had announced it would be getting out of that five-year-old
business and took a $7 million accounting charge in the first quarter. I
worked my heart out for this company, said Mary Kirkpatrick, of Rockford,
Mich., who got a layoff notice. How many more jobs are [we] going to lose
to India or China?
However, Mr. Ormond said the firm's transcription business started in India,
and the company tried to bring it to the United States but it wasn't
profitable.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060510/BUSINESS03/605100344
2) Spheris Hires Chief Financial Officer
Spheris, announced the hiring of Brian P. Callahan as its chief financial
officer. After an extensive search, we are extremely pleased to announce
the hiring of Brian Callahan as Spheris' chief financial officer, said
Steven E. Simpson, Spheris president and CEO. I am confident Brian's
experience and expertise in financial management, particularly as it relates
to operational support and capital markets, will add tremendous value to our
company.
Callahan brings with him more than 20 years of financial management
experience. Prior to joining Spheris, he served as executive vice president
and chief financial officer of Murray, Inc., headquartered in Brentwood,
Tenn. He has also held CFO and executive-level finance positions with Miller
Industries/RoadOne, Procter & Gamble and Georgia Pacific.
Spheris is headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., with major operations in St.
Petersburg, Fla.; Sterling, Va.; Milpitas, Calif.; Bangalore, India; and
Coimbatore, India.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060503/clw098.html?.v=12
3) Targeting Health Records: Arrendale Associates Utilizes Web To Improve
Medical Transcription Service
The management team at Arrendale Associates Inc., a software firm located in
suburban Charlotte, believes it has developed a means to enhance the medical
transcription business over the Internet - and through international
outsourcing.
AAI has developed a proprietary word processor and tools for medical
transcription along with custom work flow solutions that meet a particular
need in the industry, allow for outsourcing while remaining HIPAA
compliant, management told WRAL Local Tech Wire in a recent Q&A, and
delivering products and services over the Internet for ease of deployment,
support and use by physicians, nurses, clinicians and medical
transcriptionists.
http://www.localtechwire.com/article.cfm?u=13917
4) Leading Community Health Systems Hospitals Select Dictaphone PowerScribe
from Nuance
At Easton Hospital, radiologists, radiation therapy doctors and
cardiologists deliver a significantly more timely report by eliminating a
number of steps in the process including transcription. PowerScribe converts
physician dictation automatically into text and presents it onscreen for
review, correction, and electronic signature. The solution, which leverages
Nuance's award-winning Dragon(TM) NaturallySpeaking(R) technology, goes
beyond transcription efficiencies and actually reduces radiologists'
dictation time by offering the ability to create templates and report
Normals for frequent and recurring studies.
Staff radiologist Dr. Stuart Jones has been using speech recognition
technology off and on over the past 15 years, making him one of the true
pioneers of this innovative technology. Selecting PowerScribe was really a
no-brainer -- it's so far superior to other options. said Dr. Jones.
People worry about the accuracy of speech recognition technology, but
interestingly enough the technology makes the same type of mistakes that
regular transcriptionists make, only far fewer. The technology has become
very intelligent.
http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=1335829
5) Help wanted for Philippines outsourcing
Has outsourcing to the Philippines already hit a human-resource barrier?
There are growing indications that something may be amiss in the country's
fastest-growing industry.
Never before has Philippine labor had such negotiating power. Call center
recruits are now being offered signing bonuses before they start work.
Employees are given bonuses for finding new recruits - more often than not
poached from other call centers.
Still, call center managers complain about the lack of workers who are able
to speak American English. For the Philippines, which suffers perennially
from crushingly high unemployment rates, currently at 8% according to a
recent official survey, unmet labor demand is a new and unfamiliar problem.
The future of the industry is clearly at stake. ITES or cyberservices are
certainly the future of the Philippines, said Henry Schumacher, executive
director of the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines. But that
will not work unless you have English as a communicating base, and we have
seen over the last maybe 10 years that the English speaking capability [of
Filipinos] has declined. English was always one of the [Philippines']
competitive advantages.
Danilo Cruz, under secretary of the government's Department of Labor and
Employment, added, We used to be the third-largest English-speaking nation,
but call centers and medical transcription firms have failed to hire 100,000
[workers] they expected to employ in 2005.
Carol Dominguez, president and chief executive officer of the John Clements
Consultants, a human resources and executive search consulting company,
described the emerging skilled labor shortage as a national emergency.
It may come as a surprise that spoken English is actually in decline in the
Philippines, given that the country is a former American colony known for
its enthusiastic embrace of US fast food and pop culture. Manila-based
experts said that many factors had contributed to the recent national
decline in English language proficiency.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HE10Ae02.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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or post it on your site? Please do! But also be sure to read
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Mediweb Infotech Pvt. Ltd. All cited articles are copyright of
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Thank you for your interest in MT India!
The MTIndia Team
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or there are many of us out there who are working on our own accounts and are ready to form a more MT-friendly MTSO.
Offshoring was fun for the corporates while it lasted - those who gave no care to patient care, only to the bottom line. It's come full circle now - the work is coming back to us. Don't let anyone scare you further regarding offshoring - the work is returning from ESL countries across the board.
Within the past week I have spoken with 5-different Dell Support Agents, all located on US soil (verible), and compared total call time for the same computer scenario as 5-Dell Support Agents canvassed 6 months ago, admittedly located in Pakistan. The AMERICAN agents averaged 2-5 minutes per call; Pakistanis averaged 8-25 minutes per call. Multiply the extra 20 minutes by even 1,000 cals per day - OUTSOURCING BRAGS HUGE SAVINGS and the cost appears very small at the outset - BUT WHEN YOU ADD ALL OF THE PROOFING, LANGUAGE BARRIERS, TIME SPENT ON HOLD, ETC., IT IS COSTING EACH AND EVERY COMPANY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS YEARLY TO OFFSHORE OUTSOURCE.
There is proof - the work is coming back. And contrary to what we've been told, not all doctors are agreeing to VR - they cannot be forced and many of them are still using VR platforms for FULL TRANSCRIPTION.
We have done a lot of research before bringing this to light. The technology is not advancing as quickly as our paychecks are shrinking. We are being lied to.
No more bickering - I don't care if you have 30 years experience, or are fresh out of school - PUT YOUR PERSONALITY CONFLICTS ASIDE FOR NOW AND THINK OF US AS A GROUP OF PROFESSIONALS THAT NEED TO SET SOME GOALS AND BOUNDARIES AS WE ARE STILL IN HIGH DEMAND.
to your heart's content, if that's your choice and you are fortunate enough to get the kind of Lead job where you have control of work flow & distribution, as they do in my company. As bad as the Q may have been in some important areas, I always got my lines. Work was allowed to self-distribute naturally ...THE NEXT FREE MT GOT THE NEXT AVAILABLE JOB. We had 1 supervisor, not 2 dozen people we had to answer to, as today's top-heavys.
But as long as the same person who assigns/distributes the work (Leads) also types on the accounts & has FIRST CHOICE of jobs -- well, where does leave the rest of us?? With 101% $---t, that's what! That and being salaried, too! I'd be a Lead for HALF of the little they're paying us now and I bet I'd get more done if the playing field between Leads and peon MTs were evened out a little.
FutureNet, E-Transplus, or MDI.
Perhaps a combination of 2 of the above? Any advice welcome. Having to decide. Thanks in advance.
I first started coming here about 6 years ago when I started going to school for MT. The posts almost made me give up before I had even finished. I was sure I would never find a job and that I made a horrid mistake, but because I had already paid for the classes I decided to continue, and found a job 2 months before I ever graduated. I have been working for 5 years now, and have never been without job, and I make a very good line rate with an awesome company. I like coming to this board and looking around since I don't really have a relationship with co-workers in this business, it is nice to see what others are thinking, but for the most part I take everything with a grain of salt.
But what happened to you about the recruiter is pretty horrid. I can't believe somebody would do such a hateful thing, but in the end they may have done you a favor, I don't think I would have wanted to work for a company that was so rude and unprofessional.
I would work and that they include 1 weekend day, which seems fair to me. We fill out monthly calendars, letting them know if we cannot work a day (be it a weekday or weekend). I have never been told I could not have a day off. We do not have to give the hours we will work, only the amount of lines we will put in per day.
If I were an employee, I would certainly be upset if I had to log in and had no work and then would have to keep checking back throughout my shift for work, only to have to make up the entire shift later on. That seems very unfair to me.
If I run out of work at MDI, I email my liason and let them know that I'm out and I'll make it up another day if there's work. If there is not enough work later in the week, then I don't make it up. I can't help it if there's no work. I'm flexible, but I don't live to work. I'm also fortunate to have another income.
Sorry to hear of your situation. Didn't mean to be so nosy. Your post didn't say either way that you worked at MDI, but I just assumed so -- you know what that makes me!
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