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| The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati
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| Turned Around
a Transcription Problem and Now Better Than Ever |
Challenge
In 2001, the corporate transcription department of The Health Alliance
of Greater Cincinnati was drowning from an increased volume
of medical transcriptions. In particular, an increase in Emergency
Department dictations added to an already busy workload. Cost control
was also a growing concern.
A consortium of six major hospitals, the Health Alliance is the
largest and leading health system in the Tri-state area of Ohio,
Indiana and Kentucky. One transcription department of 110 full-time
medical transcriptionists (MTs) plus outsourced contractors as needed,
provide transcription services for the entire Health Alliance system.
The problem in transcription was complex and multi-faceted as Sherry
Doggett, Director of Corporate Transcription at the Health Alliance
explains. "Our Information Systems and Technology administration
and I had committed to a cost control regime. At the same time,
I faced pressure from physicians to speed turnaround time of dictated
documents. Curiously, even if I could have hired more MTs, good
ones were not easy to find."
Solution
To address its growing challenge, the Health Alliance selected the
EditScript solution from eScription. The overall business goal
was to achieve an increase in transcription productivity and to reduce
the cost per line. Four system requirements were also established:
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First drafts must have highly accurate
dictation content |
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First drafts must be correctly formatted
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Physicians do not change the way
they have to dictate |
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MTs have easy-to-use editing tools
to enhance productivity |
The Health Alliance evaluated the quality of first draft documents
on two dimensions, content and formatting. The team understood
that the fewer edits that had to be made either to content or to
formatting, the quicker the transcription process would be.
"We carefully evaluated options and EditScript proved superior in
the first draft documents it produced through its speech processing
component," stated Sherry Doggett.
Previously some doctors at the Health Alliance had used other,
real-time speech recognition products and were not happy about the
way they had to train the system, or the way that had to dictate
in a certain way. "We knew from experience that they would not want
to change their behavior and, therefore, we wanted to be sure that
the solution we selected was, in effect, transparent to the clinicians
up front," Ms. Doggett continued. Because the Health Alliance
is a hospital consortium and many doctors work and dictate from
different sites, the dictation/transcription interface needed to
work consistently from any location.
The EditScript Transcriptionist Tools worked well for the Health
Alliance and the implementation also helped the group shorten its
training period for new MTs. Commented Deborah Story, Transcription
Supervisor, "When MTs can see a draft document while listening to
the associated audio they have a better sense of how the elements
of a medical record fit together, and they become better transcribers
and editors faster than with traditional typing."
Several MTs had hand injuries and were not able to handle the physical
strain of typing. However, they were able to edit documents, which
allowed the corporate transcription department to retain their services.
Today, the EditScript solution from eScription is processing dictations
from more than 188 clinicians at the Health Alliance. Work types
processed through the EditScript system include: Procedure Notes,
Discharge Summaries, ER Follow-up and Radiology. The system is being
used in more than 14 specialty groups across the consortium of hospitals.
Turnaround time is now near the 12-hour period that people expect,
down from a high of 36-40 hours.
Results
"Since implementing the EditScript solution at the Health Alliance,
the corporate transcription team has doubled its productivity on average,
with some MTs achieving a three-fold increase in lines per hour,"
stated Sherry Doggett, Director of Corporate Transcription.
Alex Rodriguez, CIO, is also pleased with the results. "With the
deployment of the eScription platform we have reengineered our transcription
process. Our financial and quality metrics continue to improve.
Changing our processes without changing the physician's workflow
has been key," he explained.
Benefits for the Health Alliance:
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66% percent reduction in turnaround
time for transcriptions. |
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Doubling of MT productivity, with
some MTs achieving a 3-fold increase in lines per hour. |
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Decreased cost of external MTs because
of streamlined production. |
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Shortened training period for MTs. |
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Saved the jobs of qualified MTs who,
as a result of hand injuries, could edit productively but could
not type. |
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Physicians are very complimentary
about the new system because there has been no change in the
way they dictate and practice. |
EditScript technology has enabled the Health Alliance to 'do more
with less.' The productivity improvements have translated directly
into cost savings, helping the entire organization focus resources
on patient care. Learn more about the complete EditScript solution
that is delivering real results to the Health Alliance in our Products
section.
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