Did you know that nearly 30% of all medical orders are transcribed incorrectly? And as per a resect survey, majority of these mistakes are caused due numerical mix-ups, confusion between to similar-sounding words, and finally misinterpretation of homophones. Let’s take a look at each of these errors in details-
Numeric Mix-ups
Most drugs that are prescribed to patients do not have a one-size-fits-all dosage schedule, and it is up to the doctors to decide and oversee how much medication is right for each patient. Sometimes, difficulty in understanding dialects, accents and speed of delivery of the dictation, may cause transcribers to interpret the dosage inaccurately, leading to deadly outcomes. For instance, a woman from Massachusetts lost her life after being administered a dosage of blood thinner that was 30 times higher than it should have been due to an error in interpretation. This unfortunate incident is only one of hundreds of thousands of cases that result from incorrect transcriptions.
Similar-Sounding Words
There are a variety of similar-sounding words in medicine such as hypotension and hypertension, dysphagia and dysphasia, and many more; and it is not always easy for a transcriptionist to interpret them correctly at all times. For instance, if a patient, receiving treatment for colostrum issues, visits a substitute doctor with an inaccurate interpretation of the diagnosis as claustrum concern the patient runs the risk of being treated for a brain condition rather than existing breast condition.
Homophones
Homophones are words that sound similar but have totally different meaning and spelling, and there is no dearth of such words in medicine. Ileum and ilium, pleural and plural, mucous and mucus, and radical and radicle are a few examples of this. Inexperienced human transcribers can get confused and may mix these words up, changing the entire meaning of a medical report.
Errors in medical transcriptions can put lives at risk. To avoid something terrible happening, you need to partner with an experienced transcription company. Being a premium service provider in the industry we offer transcription services that are affordable, secure and more importantly, tailored for you. In addition to the team of expert transcriptionists, we also maintain a separate team of expert proofreaders who are well versed with all the medical terminologies and lingos of medical specialty. These proofreading experts carry out a word-by-word inspection of the transcript and make sure that the final document is cent percent accurate at all times.
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