More of your in-house staff in the spotlight!

Katie Bailey, QA/Editor

1. What prompted you to become a medical transcriptionist?

My interest in medicine coupled with not being able to go to medical school.

2. How did you hear about MED-TECH, and how long have you been with us.

Periodic ads in the AJC (advertising the on-site training). I have been with Med-Tech since September 2002.

3. Are you active on any MT websites on the internet? No.

4. What has been your most memorable experience since becoming and MT?

Changes: from Maureen

I have to say that my most memorable experience was not at all a pleasant one, so brace yourself. I was typing a chart from a site that treats troubled teens. One young man took it upon himself to cut off his own penis and use his urethra to tie on prosthesis because he thought it "would be better than his own." Sorry, but that is definitely my most memorable experience as an MT. I, unfortunately, will never forget that one.

5. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us about yourself? I just learned how to bake my first homemade pound cake last year when my mother was on an extended visit with me.

6. What is your favorite past-time activity? Reading, cooking, walking my dog.

Katie Bailey, QA Editor

Seems like there are always changing being made. Most recent changes include staffing change, bringing on new clinics, and changes with some of our old clients.

Staffing changes include Patrick coming back! He is coming back on board as a QA/Editor. Patrick knows his stuff, and we will all be glad to have him back. We also need to welcome Valerie to the supervisory staff.

Client changes include new work types for the University of Kentucky clinics. These include Acute Pain, Pre- and Postop Pain, Georgetown Pain Clinic, more Radiation Medicine and also more Anesthesias.

At William Beaumont we now have the Nephrology/Renal Transplant clinic.

The most recent changes at NSH are mainly changes to some of the diagnostic studies especially the cardiology reports. TEE has its own format now. Nerve conduction studies are done on their own format also instead of under the EMG studies. New normals and fixing some old ones have taken a lot of time so hopefully we are getting these under control.

Re: Audits coming soon.

We have had a number of calls concerning the upcoming audits. For those of you who have never been part of this process I can't promise that it will be painless but can promise that it will help us produce quality charts for our clients.

Here are some ideas of what will be happening.

The charts are typed. The auditor will randomly pull three jobs and edit them like if they come to hold and go to the feedback site, but then the errors are assigned a point value. These charts will be E-mailed to the MT with a score. We will be doing the audits in groups of three so it is the sum of the charts and more of an average. Such as a total of three jobs is 300 lines with one misspelled medical word would be assessed at 99.75% accuracy rate. This is above the 98% accuracy rate to pass QA audit.

POINT VALUES:

1. Gross Errors: Are 2 points per occurrence. These mainly affect patient care.

2. Major Errors: Are 0.75 (three-fourths) per occurrence.

3. Format Errors: Are 0.50 (one-half) per occurrence.

4. Common Errors: Are 0.25 point (one-half) per occurrence.

5. Minor Errors: Are 0.10 (one-tenth) per occurrence.

6. Repetitive Errors: Errors in repetition of the same type, in the same document, and an infraction of the same quality rule, shall not be counted for score.

Some errors such as incorrect patient information that goes to the client or a fax number not pulled off the NSH ref list that the MT types, and the chart gets faxed to someone other than who it was intended are automatic failed charts. These are not only HIPAA violations but affect patient care. More information is located in the QA manual posted on the sample site. I hope this helps ease your concerns.