title: Understanding the work of medical transcriptionists in the production of medical records.
abstract: Efforts to improve healthcare by reducing medical errors often center on the accuracy of medical records. At the same time, the impact of new technologies such as speech recognition technology on the process of producing medical records has not been sufficiently examined. In this article we analyzed interview data from medical transcriptionists (MTs) describing how they do the work of transcription to produce accurate medical records from doctors' dictation. We found that medical transcriptionists rely on several types of skills that current speech recognition technology lacks. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the design and implementation of SRT systems for the production of medical records and for how the work of MTs can help reduce medical errors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Bentley University, USA. agarcia@bentley.edu.
authors.forename: Angela Cora
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.forename: Gary C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: David
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chand
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008497:Medical Record Administrators; D008499:Medical Records; D049250:Speech Recognition Software