Artificial intelligence or AI refers to technology that may perform tasks that typically require humans, like interpreting speech or finding patterns. In recent years, it has transformed many industries, including medical transcription. Here’s a closer look at how AI is impacting medical transcription.
History of Medical Transcription
First, let’s go over the history of medical transcription and how it has evolved over the years. At first, healthcare providers wrote down patient interactions manually. As you can imagine, this process was incredibly tedious, time-consuming, and susceptible to errors. It was also difficult to store and share these paper documents.
Eventually, healthcare providers transitioned from physical documentation to Electronic Health Records (EHRs). You can think of EHRs as electronic versions of patients’ medical records. They are constantly maintained by medical organizations and offer valuable information about each patients’ diagnosis, tests, immunizations, medications, and treatments.
While EHRs come with many benefits, they have also led to significant administrative demands and forced healthcare providers to spend too much of their time on medical documentation, rather than patient care. For this reason, medical transcription services evolved and took a lot of burden off of the plates of doctors and other medical professionals.
Medical Transcription and AI
Ever since AI has become more prominent, medical transcription providers have leveraged its benefits. Here’s a look at how AI has and will continue to impact medical transcription:
Improved Accuracy
When AI is used in medical transcription, healthcare documents become more accurate. This is because AI-driven transcription software has the potential to learn the speech patterns and vocabulary of healthcare, leading to fewer errors and corrections.
Better Patient Outcomes
AI in medical transcription allows medical professionals to spend more time on their patients. They can also engage in more natural conversations and in turn, prompt more participation from them. Research has shown that when patients are highly involved in their health, they’re more likely to get the immunizations they need to reduce their risk of illness and improve their overall health.
Time Savings
There’s no denying that writing, dictating, and editing notes can be time consuming for healthcare providers. That’s where AI medical transcription tools come in. Instead of transcribing word by word, they can pinpoint nuances of conversational speech and remove anything that sounds irrelevant, such as filler words. Clinicians may then review and sign off notes, saving a great deal of time each day.
Greater Revenues
While AI-powered software will require a substantial upfront investment, it has the potential to reduce medical transcription costs over time and boost revenues. Since clinicians will be empowered to focus on their patients, they can build more meaningful relationships with their patients who continue to stay with them and refer them to friends and family, leading to increased revenues.
Reduced Physician Burnout
Unfortunately, physician burnout is a serious problem that leads to emotional exhaustion and lower quality care. The good news is AI-powered medical transcription may help reduce it by taking tedious administrative tasks, like medical transcription off of doctors plates. It frees up their time and energy so they can focus on their patients and self-care.
Streamlined Workflows
AI-driven medical transcription can integrate with EHR systems, streamlining the workflows of small and large healthcare organizations. In most cases, it can format and add the transcriptions directly into the EHRs to eliminate the need for manual entry and minimize the errors that come with it.
Contact Fast Chart Today
Fast Chart is pleased to utilize the power of AI in our medical transcription services. If you have questions about AI and its impact on medical transcription, we encourage you to reach out to our team. We look forward to hearing from you!