High Quality Medical Transcription Services

The medical sector is just one of many industries where online transcription services are frequently utilised. There’s legal transcription, financial transcription, media transcription, academic transcription and countless others. The expertise required to carry out high quality professional transcriptions is highly dependent on the subject area. For example, an interview transcription covering basic market research will likely take less skill to transcribe than a pharmaceutical conference. In order to provide high quality medical transcription services, typing companies need to ensure that transcriptionists have a high level of knowledge, experience and qualifications in the medical sector. However, it doesn’t stop there. There are so many elements involved in high quality medical transcription services, and that’s exactly what we’re looking at here.

Knowledge of Jargon and Medical Terms

Medical audio and video recordings will always be heavy on technical terms and jargon. First and foremost, in order to write a high quality transcript, the writer needs to be familiar with the correct spellings of jargon and technical terms. High quality medical transcription services are those provided by writers who understand that even a small mishear or change in the spelling of a medical term can entirely change a sentence’s meaning. For example,’hypothyroidism’ and ‘hyperthyroidism’ may sound almost identical on a recording, but they mean the entire opposite of each other. A well trained, experienced medical transcriptionist will understand enough to make the right decision on which to use.

Scientific or Medical Background

A professional medical transcriptionist should understand the subject matter enough to produce a script that retains the meaning of the dialogue. The wrong choices in punctuation and grammar can drastically alter sentence meaning, even for basic documents. People (yes, even doctors!) speak very differently to how they write. They make grammatical mistakes in their speech; they use repetition and slang, and can babble on for ten minutes in what seems to be one ginormous sentence. A transcriptionist needs to be capable of making good syntactical choices in order to correctly transcribe medical information.

Correct use of Abbreviations

When it comes to medical transcription services, this is a big one. Abbreviations are everywhere when it comes to anything related to the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. Medical transcriptionists need to be experienced and familiar with common abbreviations – both how they are spelled and pronounced. Often in the medical sector, rather than spelling out abbreviations, professionals will say them as if they are a word in their own right. For instance, healthcare professionals will pronounce S.I.D.S (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) as ‘sids’ and spell the term without any periods between letters – ‘SIDS’.

Compromised Audio Quality in Medical Conference Transcription

High quality medical transcription services, like any transcription sector, require high quality source material. The better quality the audio or video file, the more a transcriptionist can hear and accurately type into a transcript. However, many professionals create medical research recordings during conferences, round table discussions, or over the phone. None of these scenarios are ideal for producing high quality audio. Therefore, skilled medical transcriptionists should be able to clean audio, and also have a good ear.

Time Coding or Logging of Rushes for Medical Videos

Especially within the pharmaceutical industry, there is a high demand for time coded medical transcription, as well as logging rushes. This is where a typist transcribes raw video footage with details of shot changes and time codes. The client will then use the medical transcript  to put together a final edit of the video. This might typically be an educational or instructional medical video or a promo on a new drug. Whatever the use for the final cut, time coded medical transcription is highly time consuming and requires a huge amount of accuracy and care.

If you would like to discuss your medical typing requirements or need information about our medical transcription services, a different transcription service or any of our other services, get in touch with us, we are available everyday and would love to hear from you.