Medical Dictation and Transcription Blog

Spheris financial troubles is forcing a move

Bob Haugen — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:35:17 -0600

I just read an interesting article on Spheris. It appears they are being purchased by two competitive companies due to financial woes. Not sure what this means in terms of services.

Doctors Say Narrative Missing from Proposed EHR Regulations

Bob Haugen — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:14:08 -0600

Physicians are pushing the federal Health & Human Services Department to include physician narratives in the proposed regulations for electronic health records. Doctors use the narrative to expand on an assessment and offer subjective and objective evaluations of a case, as well as outline the treatment plan. Some doctors use speech recognition technology for their narratives in EHR systems. The public has 60 days to comment on the HHS regulations.

"No matter how good [EHR records] are, you'll never get the flavored nuance of the patient's [situation] if you don't have an unstructured note," said Dr. Steven Schiff, the medical director and service chief of cardiology at Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center, in Fountain Valley, Calif., in aneWEEK interview.

Trancriptionists use Instant Text with Emdat

Bob Haugen — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:22:11 -0600

I recently met Marianne Kleen from Textware Solutions at the AHDI meeting and she expressed how happy many medical transcriptionists were that they were able to use Instant Text within Emdat's InScribe typing platform. Marianne gave me this hyperlink to an excellent article. http://www.executivehm.com/article/Proven-Technology-for-Fast-Entry-Instant-Text/

Instant Text - is a great productivity tool used with Emdat's InScribe.

Textware Solutions, developer and publisher of Instant Text, counts among its customers a large number of Emdat users happy to increase their productivity in the process of clinical documentation. While working in Emdat they can seamlessly utilize the knowledge base of their Instant Text glossaries that contain the medical words and phrases they have to deal with every day. The unique features of Instant Text allow them to have tens of thousands of words, drug names, phrases, addresses right at their fingertips with a few letters and without having to memorize any shortcut codes. Instant Text gives them the speed to keep up with the doctor's speech.

Emdat attending MTIA, AHDI and AHIMA in 2010

Bob Haugen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:46:38 -0600

MTIA 2010
Emdat will be attending the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA) national meeting in Daytona Beach, Florida, April 28th - May 1st, 2010.

AHDI 2010
Emdat will attend the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity 31st Annual Convention and Expo in Austin, TX, in 2010.

AHIMA 2010
Emdat will attend the American Health Information Management Association Convention and Exhibit in Orlando, FL, September 25–30, 2010.

Emdat Committed to Health Story Project

Bob Haugen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:38:09 -0600

Emdat a Promoter of Health Story Project
Emdat, a world leader in online-based medical transcription software, is taking on a leadership role with the Health Story Project. Health Story develops and promotes standards that support the flow of information between narrative documents and electronic medical record systems (EMR ).

“As a provider of transcription software and data storage to thousands of medical transcription companies and healthcare providers around the globe, Emdat is well situated to provide meaningful insights for the critical work Health Story is doing,” said Randy Olver, Emdat CEO.

As part of advancing Health Story goals, Emdat leaders will provide strategic direction for the project, speak at industry events, serve as media spokespeople and continue sculpting its technologies in accordance with the project’s standards.

“Emdat’s direct commitment to Health Story supports further development of specifications for the transfer of information from narrative document types directly to EMR systems,” said Health Story executive committee member Nick van Terheyden, MD, Chief Medical Officer of M*Modal. “The efforts of companies like Emdat are further evidence of the industry’s readiness to make interoperability a fact of life and to support providers in achieving federal meaningful use requirements.”

Emdat developers work with EMR providers to ensure transcribed data is fluidly incorporated. Its mission is to provide medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) and healthcare providers a fully managed software suite to collect, store and move data with no up-front software costs or maintenance fees.

Emdat Gold Member of MTIA

Bob Haugen — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:30:54 -0600

Emdat becomes Gold Member of MTIA
Emdat is proud to annouce its Gold membership in the Medical Transcription Industry Association (MTIA). As a MTIA Gold member, Emdat will be highly visible leader within the healthcare industry and an important contributor to national healthcare policy. MTIA is the world's largest association for medical transcription service organizations. It is a not-for-profit trade association serving the needs of medical transcription companies, vendors, and health information management professionals.

Randy Olver selected new CEO of Emdat

Bob Haugen — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:44:47 -0600

RANDY OLVER NAMED EMDAT CEO, WILL LEAD NEXT PHASE OF GROWTH FOR MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION SOLUTIONS PROVIDER

Fitchburg, WI (Nov. 5, 2009) – Emdat, a world leader in online-based medical transcription solutions, has tapped Randy Olver as its new CEO, effective immediately.

Emdat’s founding partners, who remain actively involved in the business, selected Olver to serve as CEO of the 10-year-old company. Steve Palmisano, one of the founders who had been CEO, will serve as president.

“Randy’s diverse business experience is exactly what we’ve been seeking to guide Emdat to the next level so that we can continue providing world-class transcription products and services to our clients,” Palmisano said. “We’ve tripled in size in the past five years and, looking forward, our business needs have grown dramatically.”

Emdat, which experienced double-digit growth during the difficult business environment of the past year, remains committed to its core business model of providing medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) and healthcare providers a fully managed software suite to collect, store and move data with no up-front software costs or maintenance fees.

Olver, a commercial banking veteran who joined Emdat in February 2009 as a vice president, said upcoming years present a significant opportunity for the medical transcription industry. He said growth in electronic medical record (EMR) adoption and federal mandates make it more important than ever for medical notes and dictations to be integrated quickly and accurately.

“It’s a critical time for medical software and I am very confident in the ability of Emdat’s people and technology to evolve with industry changes and to set the pace for improvements,” Olver said. “There’s a heightened awareness within the medical community regarding ways that transcription software complements, rather than competes with, electronic medical records.”

Olver, a resident of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, earned a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a MBA from DePaul University. He worked at US Bank for 17 years and was most recently a senior vice president managing Milwaukee’s National Corporate Banking group.

ABOUT EMDAT Emdat, Inc. (www.emdat.com), based in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, provides medical facilities and transcription service providers with flexible, seamless and cost-efficient solutions for fully managing medical transcription. Emdat provides one of the world’s leading transcription solutions serving more than 2,500 medical facilities throughout the United States and a network of hundreds of medical transcription companies around the globe.

CanScribe offers Medical Transcription training online

Bob Haugen — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:07:49 -0600

I had the pleasure of working next to Frank Takacs and Angie Lachman from CanScribe at the AHDI meeting in Nashville, TN. CanScribe offers the CanScribe Career Centre which places qualified medical transcriptionists who have completed their course curriculum. Additionally internship opportunities can be offered to MTSOs who want to try out the newly qualified MTs. The MTSOs can get up to 100 hours of free work from these MTs to make sure it is a good fit for both parties.

A Better Back offers relief for back and neck pain

Bob Haugen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:57:18 -0600

I was talking with Claudia Rimoli at the AHDI meeting in Nashville, TN about her invention called A Better Back. Their lumbar support pillow offers both hot and cold therapy relief for neck and back ailments. I had a chance to try this out at the AHDI meeting and was very impressed with the results. If you suffer from some of these issues due to sitting for long periods of time you might give it a try.

Quick weight loss using Ideal Protein for syndrome X

Bob Haugen — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:16:59 -0600

Advanced coach Hazel Thompson spent some time with me at the AHDI meeting in Nashville covering this weight loss method. Her clinic, Living Well Weight Loss treats men and women needing to lose weight and retrain their bodies for effective weight loss. The protocol retrains your pancreas to maintain the weight loss after the diet is finished. If you might be interested in further information please visit Ideal Protein and ask for Hazel "The Coach."

Emdat's 2009 Users Group Meeting Announced

Bob Haugen — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:13:39 -0600

Are you ready to have some fun? Emdat is again hosting it's Users Group meeting December 9-11th 2009 in New Orleans, LA. This is a great opportunity to learn more about Emdat's suite of web based applications as well as network with other MTSOs who have chosen to utilize the Emdat platform. You can register by clicking on the link. Please come join us for an opportunity to develop some long lasting business relationships.

eMedDox launches new website for transcription

Bob Haugen — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:40:30 -0600

Congratulations to Bobby Powers and eMedDox for launching their new web site. Bobby has been a partner of Emdat's for quite some time now and has put together some creative marketing ideas to get his message out to the industry. Best of luck Bobby!

Don't let power outage stop your transcription business

Bob Haugen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:24:11 -0600

I just spoke with one of my new MTSOs and she indicated that the recent power outage in the Midwest had caused her problems. I reminded her that Emdat allows you to outsource within our software other MTSOs. Knowing that you cannot power up the software is an issue but if you develop relationships with other MTSOs on the Emdat platform it would allow you to manage that work flow with their help thus avoiding service interruptions to your clients. You always need a backup plan when you are a MTSO.

How will medical transcription be affected by a National Healthcare Record?

Bob Haugen — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:35:54 -0600

How medical transcription will be affected by a Nationalized Health Care Record is a common question these days.

All of the soundbites that are in the air definitely keep us thinking about the future, and we've had many discussions about this. The most likely probability is that there won't be significant change at a national level, due to all of the healthcare lobbies, etc. Under a new administration, there may major reforms in this area followed by major changes in healthcare, but I think the likely hood of that is very slim.

That said, EMR systems are still emerging, pushing medical facilities to "reduce transcription costs" by using Voice Recognition and Templating features of their systems. With that in mind, we are moving forward internally with many development efforts to stay on top of this.

First, Voice Recognition tops our list, and several of our clients are ramping up. We believe the technology partner we've gone with for Voice Recognition will exceed the claims made by other vendors, keeping us in play for facilities that want to go with this technology.

Second, Interfacing updates have long been requested and are a major focus for us this year. The ability to interface with a variety of EMRs easily will keep dictation as a feasible alternative for providers moving to EMR systems. Additionally, should a national system emerge (or even if Google or Microsoft have success with a patient-oriented approach to a medical record), interfacing is one of our strongest assets to be able to participate in that environment.

Finally, we are analyzing other EMR-like functions that can be added to our system directly, which will eliminate the need for smaller facilities to purchase an expensive EMR system. EMRs are essentially documentation of a patient visit, and the transcribe note is 80% of that record. If we can position our software to be a lite-EMR, you can offer it to your clients as a value-added service.

We are always watching what is coming and focusing our current efforts to meet those needs.

See you at MTIA in 2009

Bob Haugen — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:56:02 -0600

Emdat is planning on attending the upcoming MTIA (Medical Transcription Industry Association) in Louisville, KY. The meeting will be held from April 22-25, 2009. Emdat will sponsor a booth with plans to meet with any current MTSOs as well as any new prospects who might be interested in improving their dictation and transcription process flow via Emdat's web based platform. The TASP model is easy to implement and one of the best methods to populate EMRs via HL7 interfaces. Software as a service is growing in popularity because their is no upfront costs or maintenance required.

Marketing

Bob Haugen — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:59:18 -0600

We are very excited to have Laura Lowe join Emdat's marketing team. Laura comes to Emdat from CINN where she was responsible for marketing communications and graphic design. Laura's phone number is 608-270-6400 Ext. 373. Laura being a UW-Madison grad is excited about coming to Madtown for some of the upcoming Big Ten football games.

Corporate Headquarters Emdat

Bob Haugen — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:52:10 -0600

Emdat has a new corporate headquarters at :

2940 Chapel Valley Rd.

Fitchburg, WI 53711

NEW PHONE: 608-270-6400

Medical Transcription Service Organizations

Bob Haugen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:06:40 -0600

If you are a medical transcription service organization looking to improve your work flow process you might want to take a look at the following flash presentation. Emdat has tried to address the needs of MTSO's by offering our software as a service. By supplying a totally integrated suite of web based applications Emdat has helped many transcription organizations grow their businesses. If you want to sell your services as well as the software to complete your offering to the clinics and hospitals you might want to watch the flash demo above.

Upcoming Medical Conferences

Bob Haugen — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:19:53 -0600

Emdat is planning on attending the Annual Clinical Assembly of Osteopathic Specialists in Boca Raton, FL from Sept. 11-13th. We will be working in the OTTC booth. We also will attend the upcoming Arkansas MGMA meeting in Eureka Springs, AR from Sept. 17-19th working in the eMedDox booth. In October Emdat will be attending the Illinois Primary Health Care Association Leadership Conference in Galena, IL from Oct. 8-10 working with Mayfield Transcription.

Visually impaired transcribing using Emdat's TASP

Bob Haugen — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:54:07 -0600

It was brought to my attention that Emdat's InScribe transcription application can be useful in assisting visually impaired medical transcriptionist when using an application called Jaws. I wanted to pass the following information along to anyone who might be interested.

We received this message from a physician in Australia who stated "My patient is Visually Impaired only and has perfect hearing. I would very much like to speak to you regarding the mechanics of using Jaws with the InScribe application. There are quite a number of people who have a significant visual handicap who are excellent typists (medical transcriptionists) and desperate to find gainful employment, not only from the financial point of view but also the social one."