Medical Transcription & Dictation : Emdat : Reduce Transcription Cost

Last month, Bob Haugen, Emdat's VP of Sales and Marketing, posted on our blog about "Coopetition".  It took me a while to figure that word out, but it's really a great word when describing our system in relation to other systems at a medical facility.  Some facilities have practice management systems, electronic medical records systems, dictation systems, hospital information systems, radiology systems, etc.  Quite a few of these boast a transcription module to go along with their primary function.  But what does each system have in common?  They all can integrate with Emdat.

Ever since Emdat started, we've prided ourselves on our simple integration strategy.  We developed tools to accept data from other vendor's systems, so that patient demographics, appointment information, and referring physician data can be easily accessed by typists and the medical staff.  We also created methods with which we could interact with EMR systems.  The key to our integration was that we provided most of these interfaces for free.  Since many systems adhere (even loosely) to interfacing standards in the industry, we can easily connect and interact with many systems - in fact, we have yet to meet a system to which we cannot talk.

Many of these systems have their own transcription modules, but none are as full-featured as the Emdat system.  With our ability to accept dictation from so many devices and still deliver an end product seamlessly through our web-based InQuiry work flow application, we look at our transcription offering as the best out there.  But with our ability to integrate with practically any system, we don't see ourselves competing with these systems, but rather complementing them.  Our system *is* the transcription module for your system, if you want it to be.  And with some of these vendors, we've worked hard to integrate more deeply than just a transfer of data. 

Recently, our ShadowLink application took interfacing to a whole new level, providing a more robust communications tool.  With ShadowLink, we've seen interfaces become easier to build, much more reliable, and a breeze to maintain.  But that was just the start...

In 2007, Emdat is focusing further on system integration.  Besides a major update to ShadowLink, we're adding interfacing tools to every part of our system.  In InQuiry, chosen users will be able monitor interfaces.  Through InCommand and Client Maintenance, users will be able to adjust ShadowLink's configurations, and even alter and create new data mappings.  Users will be able to start sending us data and receiving standard transcribed results via ShadowLink with just a few clicks of the mouse.  And ShadowLink itself has many new features, from additional notifications to easier setup.

I plan to use this blog to describe more of the functionality that is planned with ShadowLink and our interface system over the course of the next few months (as well as other development efforts in progress).  Of course, if there are any suggestions for features in this system, we are always listening to your feedback.

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Steve Jobs, founder of Apple computer, once said, "You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new."  Nothing has made that more visibly true to Emdat then when we implemented our Feedback system.  Emdat *is* asking our customers what they want, and for the most part are trying to deliver.  That can be a long road, and more ideas will come in while on that road, but we believe it is a road worth traveling.

Emdat is a constantly evolving system.  We originally built the system around the ideas of the three founders, who brought in their experience working at various medical institutions.  But their experiences were one-sided - coming mostly from a technical background.  Steve Palmisano, one of the founders, recognized this early on, and has always kept the User Experience in the foreground of our application development.  Almost no piece of any application goes out the door without Steve (and more recently, Rich and his QA staff) designing and analyzing the user experience.

But they can't think of it all.  Because of that, we instituted an e-mail address, feedback@emdat.com.  If there is anything our software doesn't do, which may be a benefit to your organization or to any other organization, we welcome your suggestions at this address.

To date, Emdat has received hundreds of e-mails at this address.  Soon, a major release of InCommand is scheduled to be released, containing many of the suggestions of our user community.  After this release, we expect InScribe, InQuiry, and another InCommand release to follow.

Development takes time and effort, and Emdat must, of course, weigh the ideas that are sent to us against current development, the needs of the customer, and the likelihood that a feature will be beneficial to other customers or the system in general.  Because of this, some feedback requests get done rather quickly - rolled into a existing release, or one that is currently in development.  Most others, however, go onto a feature list, which is reviewed regularly by our development committee.  It is not our goal to receive feedback, add them to a list, and have them die there - it is our goal to review the list and choose ideas that should go into a new release. 

It takes time to develop a release of software, it is likely any new idea will come in while others are already in development.  However, all ideas are welcome, and some we are internally surprised that we hadn't come up with ourselves!  Emdat's success depends on the success of it's clients (and it's client's clients).  A better product means better productivity for you, and a better solution for us.  Emdat is constantly in development, but that isn't stopping us.  So despite the words of wisdom above, we're asking you today and everyday:  What do you want?

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Some systems give transcription companies the option of charging for these lines.  Since Transcription Companies pay for the software that generates these lines, they have every right to charge their client for them.  Traditionally, anything on the final report is considered chargeable lines.  In the Emdat system, the transcription company or medical facility (whomever is contracted to use the software) not only have the choice of charging for headers and footers, but also patient demographic labels, clinician titles and credentials, first and last paragraphs of a transcription (if as a template).

The Print Template was first designed by Emdat and uses the technology built into Internet Explorer to allow for variable information before the transcription body and after the transcription body.  Because these variables are populated through setup screens and the transcriptionist doesn't type them, Transcription Companies can use Emdat without any additional expenses and usually save money by using Emdat. 

Medical Facilities are able to dramatically drop the number of lines that are transcribed and therefore dramatically drop their transcription expense each month.  Using Print Templates is a major improvement and cost savings over traditional transcription.  Contact Emdat for more details.

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Emdat publishes a monthly newsletter. The newsletter contains helpful information regarding the use of Emdat plus uncoming features and applications.

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For the past 50 years, transcription has been the most efficient means of documenting a patient encounter.  During this time frame, the transcription industry has grown to be a multi-billion dollar industry annually.  Doctors love the convenience of dictating the encounter and the time savings they realize. Administrators frown each time they receive a transcription bill and are constantly trying to find a solution that will dramatically decrease or eliminate their transcription cost.

One popular solution to eliminate or reduce transcription costs is to implement an EMR type of system. The system allows clinicians or their staff to document the patient encounter on-line, thereby eliminating or drastically reducing the need for transcription. In a recent article titled “Transcription’s Coopetition with EMR’s”  by Bob Haugen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Emdat, Inc., he explains the problems associated with such an approach. These problems result in loss of revenue for the health care facility.

An approach that can drastically reduce transcription expenses while at the same time, allowing clinicians to document encounters using dictation is called “Structured Templates”. This approach, similar to an EMR approach, uses templates that clinicians use while dictating. Instead of a clinician or staff person using the templates on-line as they would in an EMR system, the Structured Templates are dictation templates that allow the clinician to spend less time dictating and the transcriptionist less time transcribing. The result is a win-win.

The clinician chooses from a library of specialty specific transcription templates and makes these templates their own by editing or changing them. The template should include as much pre-defined text as possible to reduce the time of dictation. The clinicians simply dictate the blanks or dictates free text that is required to complete the template. The new part of this process is that the health care facility pays a reduced price for template lines (usually 50% of the transcribed price) and pays the full transcription fee for lines that are typed by the transcriptionist..

In the end, the transcriptionist, Transcription Company and medical facility experience a win. This can be done without negatively impacting the productivity of clinicians. In fact, in most cases, it will impact productivity in a positive manner.

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