Medical laboratories are always busy; anything that can lessen the workload can be a godsend to overworked techs. That’s why most of them record their laboratory notes and transcribe them later. However, that’s a good way to burn your lab staff out. Fortunately, experienced medical transcription companies can save labs the headache of transcribing their notes. However, not all transcription companies are created equal, and preventing transcription errors in laboratory notes needs to be a top priority.
So, let’s talk about how we maintain more than 99% accuracy for all pathology transcription notes.
In this article, you’ll learn how:
- Accurate laboratory notes are crucial for reproducibility and legal protection.
- Preventing errors in laboratory note transcription requires training, expertise, and a dedication to perfecting the craft.
- Ditto Transcript offers high-level security, HIPAA compliance, and more than 99% accuracy for lab notes transcription.
What Are Laboratory Notes?
Lab notes are records created and maintained for every type of laboratory testing in a healthcare facility. They record everything done during tests, including the methods used, observations made, attempts made, and results obtained, step-by-step, with no stone unturned. A complete laboratory note creates a chain of progression that allows lab techs to see if proper procedures were followed or detect where the process went wrong in case of unexpected results.
Of course, the latest technological advancements we enjoy mean that laboratory technicians don’t have to stop what they’re doing to scribble down a few words on a piece of paper. Laboratory notes are commonly recorded with simple audio or video equipment, making it more convenient for the tech to record, review, and file the lab notes.
However, video and audio recordings take time to watch or listen to, negating the convenience of recording in the first place. That’s why healthcare organizations hire expert medical transcription companies to turn recorded laboratory notes into written transcripts.
How Ditto Transcribes Laboratory Notes
Before discussing how to avoid transcription errors in laboratory notes, let’s take a quick look at how laboratory notes are transcribed.
| Step | Description |
| 1. Gather Necessary Materials | Ensure you have all the required materials before beginning transcription. |
| 2. Review the Source Material | Familiarize yourself with the content you are about to transcribe. |
| 3. Set Up Transcription Tools | Prepare your transcription environment. |
| 4. Begin Transcription | Start transcribing the laboratory notes. |
| 5. Verify Terminology | Cross-check scientific terms and abbreviations. |
| 6. Structure the Notes | Organize the transcribed content into a clear and logical format. |
| 7. Review and Edit | Carefully review the transcribed notes for accuracy and completeness. |
| 8. Perform a Quality Check | Conduct a final quality check before submission. |
| 9. Save and Backup | Save the final transcription and create backups. |
| 10. Submit or Share | Deliver the transcribed notes to the relevant parties. |
The Weakness of AI Transcription Services
Yes, AI is new and exciting. That doesn’t mean it should be used in everything—and it certainly doesn’t mean it should be used for medical transcription.
I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: the consequences of inaccurate transcription are heavy, far-reaching, and unpredictable. Some potential effects of incorrect transcripts include miscommunications, legal ramifications, loss of credibility, misinformation, operational errors, negative financial consequences, damaged relationships, and time and resource waste.
For all its speed, AI still cannot transcribe with acceptably accurate results.
AI transcription work is at the mercy of background noise, overlapping speakers, different accents and dialects, and poor audio file quality. It cannot identify nuance and utilize context to create a more accurate verbatim transcription — things that come naturally to experienced human transcriptionists.
In a statement to IBM, Julia Hirschberg, a professor and chair at the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University, explained why voice recognition software isn’t as accurate as some may think. Hirschberg says, “The ability to recognize speech as well as humans do is a continuing challenge, since human speech, especially during spontaneous conversation, is extremely complex.”
How We Prevent Transcription Errors in Laboratory Notes
Ditto Transcripts been around for over a decade, and my team and I have spent much time perfecting our process. So, here’s how we prevent transcription errors in laboratory notes.
Training and Expertise
You won’t last in the transcription business if you can’t learn. I try to instill that value in my employees and partners, and so far, I’m happy with the results. Ditto’s hires maybe one in every one hundred applicants as we require our transcriptionists to have the necessary experience. And we provide ongoing specialized training for everyone, regardless of length of experience.
Stringent Quality Assurance Processes
Most transcribers do one pass at a transcript, submit it to the client, and move on to the next task on the list.
Not Ditto. We ensure that transcripts are 100% clean and accurate and meet all client-provided guidelines from step one. We also do this manually, which means 100% human quality assurance, not just tossing the transcript into the latest AI language model and hoping the results are acceptable. I’ve found that it doesn’t prevent transcription errors in laboratory transcripts, so why bother?
Furthermore, manual quality assurance also ensures that errors are identified and addressed appropriately—and we don’t just do that with our staff. We also inform clients of missing information in their recordings to make the entire recording and transcription process all the better for everyone involved.
Data Security and Integrity
Data access is an essential aspect of medical transcription. Stringent security measures ensure that no confidential patient information is leaked.
When I say patient information, I mean all of it, even if it’s just a birthday, a middle name, or a favorite pet. Information is a commodity in the digital age, and any one piece could allow hackers and social engineers to break into someone’s private life.
Furthermore, data security and authorization blocks allow transcriptionists to work on recordings and documents without fear of their transcripts being accidentally edited or tampered with. Audit, digital signatures, and built-in security protocols are all being followed to the letter.
Ditto’s top-notch security platform pulls out all the stops, including features like:
- Detailed Reporting and Tracking Features
- Individually Defined User Access Levels
- Individual User Names, Passwords, and PINs (immediate deactivation upon request)
- Scaled Network Redundancy
- Virtual Private Network (VPN) Integration
- Dedicated Data Centers
- Encrypting All Data With SSL 256-bit Encryption
- Employee Background Checks*
- Non-Disclosure Agreements
Advantages of Outsourcing Lab Notes Transcription
Here are some of the biggest advantages of enlisting the help of reliable medical transcribers:
Time Savings
Transcription services eliminate the need for manual documentation by reducing time spent doing essential, pesky paperwork. Lab techs and other support staff can provide verbal accounts and recordings, and a professional medical transcriptionist who understands medical terminology can take over the process and provide accurate transcription.
Cost Efficiency
Hiring in-house medical transcriptionists can become very expensive. Hiring costs, salaries and benefits, equipment, and office space expenses can cost as much as $100,000 per year per transcriptionist.
Outsourcing your transcription to a reliable medical transcription provider lets you reduce in-house costs by as much as 60%. Medical facilities looking to streamline their documentation process will be hard-pressed to find a more cost-effective way than outsourced transcription solutions.
Accuracy
Medical providers are well aware of the headaches of paperwork and documentation. Documentation of medical records is a difficult multi-step process, and any issue can negatively affect the whole procedure. Thankfully, any concern with documentation can be addressed with one solution: accuracy.
One of the most valued advantages of medical transcription is its accuracy guarantees. Medical transcription teams work on the audio files, produce the most accurate transcripts possible, and ensure that grammar and spelling are all correct and that every nugget of information is taken down and placed in its proper field.
Consistency in Documentation
Consistent medical transcription from quality providers can help improve record standardization procedures outside EMR/EHR systems. Uniform records take the guesswork out of paperwork, enhance readability, and improve data structure so doctors and other private health professionals can peruse records with little fuss.
In this case, healthcare industry members are encouraged to enlist the services of a reliable transcription company, like Ditto Transcripts, to handle their medical data.
Compatibility With EHR/EMR
EHR and EMR systems require medical staff to input patient information into designated boxes. This process should speed things up, but only some know it.
Reliable outsourced medical transcription providers like Ditto Transcripts can interface with almost every EHR system on the market. We can take the burden of documentation out of your hands, allowing physicians to focus more on their patients and live more outside of work.
Here’s how we do it.
- Doctors, nurses, and medical staff dictate patient information, chart notes, histories, treatment plans, medication, and other relevant EHR data.
- Audio recordings are sent to us via our secure cloud interface.
- We assign a skilled medical transcriptionist to produce and proofread the transcripts. Transcribed dictations are converted into PDFs, RTFs, or other text file formats as required.
- We send the completed work back to you. The transcripts, formatted into structured EHR templates, allow your system to read and auto-populate proper text fields using an HL7 interface.
What’s more, you don’t need to worry about regulatory issues. Ditto Transcripts complies with all HIPAA requirements, processes, and protocols to ensure your data is safe and secure.
Want To Prevent Transcription Errors In Laboratory Notes? Choose Ditto
You don’t need to juggle documentation, staff morale, and patient experience. Let us handle the paperwork so you can focus on more important things.
Here at Ditto Transcripts, we guarantee 99% accuracy rates with all medical transcriptions we provide for the healthcare industry, all delivered on time, every time. We offer affordable rates, flexible options, fast turnaround times, HIPAA-compliant security, and the best customer service in the industry.
Ditto Transcripts is a HIPAA-compliant Denver, Colorado-based medical transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.