What will happen to us when Electronic Medical Redords become the norm?

I would love to hear everyones 2 cents about Electronic Medical Records....How soon will this be a problem for us? What will we do after they are in most doctors exam rooms?

Let me know what you guys think...Do MT's have a future? or did I just go thru schooling for nothing ...

• What will happen to us when Electronic Medical Redords become the norm? - new mt grad
  • EMR threat - fastfingers
  • EMR's -- we will still be needed - Patti
  • My old clinic spent (sm) - anon

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Ok, so I went to my doctor's office today and noticed that they just installed a computer station for all doctors in the clinic to start doing their own records while they are visiting you!  What do you guys think?? Is this the end of our profession or is our profession going turn it to something else..like editing those reports that the doctors have to type.

Is this a real problem or will it be many years from now before it effects us?  Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks....

Here's the scoop on EMR.... right now not all facilities have everything electronic, but they are working on getting electronic on all records, however, there will still be paperbased files. What MTs need to do is to become familiar in the electronic field and not just limit their skills to transcription, because, lets face it today NO ONE stays at one job for years and years, no matter what the specialty, you need to keep educating yourself, better your skills, and move on to bigger and BETTER things!!! It will eventually change, after all, even AMTA changed their name:)

Can anyone tell me the best electronic medical spellchecker on the market and where I can buy it? Starting a new account and it is required to have.

Thanks,

Angie

Yes, they are pushing to make medical records electronic, instead of a paper chart.  That doesn't affect MTs.  We still transcribe reports and instead of the reports being printed and filed in a paper chart, they are part of the electronic record and can be accessed at any computer in the hospital , for instance.  The doctor can sit at the nursing station and pull up all the dictated reports, the lab, radiology reports, etc.

Voice recognition, of course, is something different.  There is no one saying that VR has to be used by 2012.  That's simply an alternate way of getting the dictation onto the EMR.

My job has been scanning all the medical records over to electronic medium and the doctors are now taking laptops in the exam room with them and typing in all the info, so basically, my job will be obselete once this transition is over. 

Our boss has been doing a comparison of the clinics who now have the electronic medical record--those docs went from dictating thousands of lines in a weekly period to less than 50!!!  Of course this is a tremendous difference and it's "lights out" for us MTs.  We've got about a good year before it's all done.

Have any of you been affected by this new technology?

P.S.  I didn't care so much anyhow...I hate this industry and this job, so I've been looking for other employment anyhow. 

I'm wondering if there is a program out there that allows a small MTSO to provide EMR to a clinic of three physicians.

I'm looking for a web-based transcription program that allows me to send/receive dictation on the web and that allows them to access the finished records via the web.

Any ideas?  TIA

I've been an IC for over thirty years and the medical offices are now asking me if they can search for old records?  What, they don't keep their own records anymore?  Do all MT companies now offer searchable databases on their company servers for the physician's staff or do they install databases on the physician's computers for this sort of thing?  I've been asked to provide this and I'm thinking "wow, can't the office staff open word and find the appropriate folder and file?"  Is this now a standard item offered by MTSO's?   What happened to medical office management software?  Are transcription companies now becoming electronic medical records suppliers?  If so, please let me know.....If so I've become a dinosaur!

I began p/t IC work for a local MT company and they're driving me crazy.  THey look at every single word I type and send me HARD COPIES in the mail of my corrections, format changes, etc. 

I have 15 years of MT experience - so this is crazy!  It's all illegible - and I'm starting to go crazy!  They pointed out "40mg"  instead of "40 mg" ... all little stuff like that.  Is this what I'll have to look forward to ?   Thanks, MT-NY

the tests were not dictations that I do on an everyday basis.  I know they pick and choose carefully what they will test you on because there are always kinks in there where the doc either stumbles, mumbles, or you know you would have to be a genius to figure out what they are saying.

and Tessier's The Surgical Word Book, 3rd edition.  Books you could buy used I would say would be Stedman's Pathology and Lab Medicine and Cardiology/Pulmonary word book.  These are all the books I use the most during my day.  You could buy other speciality word books as you need them and could probably go used with those.

I wouldn't bother with buying a drug book, new editions come out every year and I just stick to the FDA website and RXList as my drug references.

Also FYI, not a book, but I use my Stedman's Electronic Medical Dictationary a lot.  It's easier to open the program than it is to pick up a huge 30-pound dictionary.

I currently have all of my word books, drug books, and dictionaries on my computer.  About the only book that I may ever need that I don't have on my disk is *One-Word, Two-Words, or Hyphenated?* and my anatomy book, but there are some great websites out there, in addition to Google, that can supplement this when I'm away from home.

One of the last places I went to where I actually had to take work with me was Las Vegas.  We had a BEAUTIFUL view of the strip, so I just turned the hotel desk sideways so that it was up against the over-sized windows and I just typed away!!!  I would rather have been ON the strip, but the view while I was working was definitely different than the trees-and-mailbox view that I get at home!!

I just took my laptop, external ergonomic keyboard and mouse, foot pedal, and headphones.  I had to pack the keyboard in my suitcase and pray that it wasn't crushed, but everything else fit nicely in my laptop bag as a carry-on.  I think the high-speed connection at the hotel was around $20/day, but I had no connectivity problems with it.

A lady I used to know traveled full-time with her retired husband and so she had a new *view* every week!  She had a satellite connection hooked up to her RV and so she would work on the road.  I actually think I might postpone my own retirement just so I can have the experience of working in a different state every week!!

When I go to the doctor, he types my visit into the electronic medical record himself as he is speaking with me.  I guess it saves them time on dictating the report .

I always say I will train for something else but it costs to go to school.  I have been in school forever, off a semester, on a semester.  I just hope I can get re-trained before everyone switches to EMR.

anon