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Thursday, September 30, 2010
How To Move Beyond Business Branding - Share this on Facebook Stumble upon something good? Share it on StumbleUpon S... http://ht.ly/19ejTk
Tonight is the night! If you are in the London Area join us as we celebrate the dreams of 10 people who are living them and see how you can live yours too! http://bit.ly/FromDreamsToDestiny
The Definition of My Daughter's Success
As I read articles about talented college graduates unable to find work because the US job growth rate is not keeping pace with the college graduation rate, I speculate about the best way to define success for my 17 year old daughter.
Is it a high paying job as doctor, lawyer, or stockbroker?
Is it fame resulting from some remarkable talent?
Is it her pursuit of one of my dreams - being a naturalist, an environmental engineer, or outdoor educator?
Is it successfully competing with some local, regional, or national peers to be the best at something?
Should I compare her to the athletes, musicians, performers, artists, and academicians in her school and ask her to be as good or better than they are?
All such measures of success are perilous.
How many doctors, lawyers, or hedge fund traders have you met that are satisfied with their lives and look forward to the challenges of their career every day?
How well does fame really serve anyone? Just ask Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, or Michael Jackson's family.
Imprinting unfilled parental dreams on children is likely not sustainable. Children need to find and pursue their own passions.
Competitive spirit is a great thing to have, except when it leads to a winning at all costs mentality, sacrificing ethics along the way. Just ask the steroid using baseball players.
Comparing your children to others is an insult to the individuality of your children. When I think back on my own childhood, my peers who could have been held up as ideal comparisons did not end up with happy or fulfilling lives. Some peaked in High School. A journey of continuous optimism and life improvement, striving to be the best you can be on your own terms, seems like a better course than making comparisons to other people along the way.
The bottom line - asking my daughter to fulfill my expectations, follow in my footsteps. or live up to standards I set does not respect her ability to choose and pursue her own dreams.
Thus, my definition of success for my daughter is simple. It's not related to grades, talent, dollars, or fame.
If she can develop a sense of self-worth, pursing a path designed by her that fuels her self-esteem, then she will be successful.
The world of the 21st century is a complex place. Traditional measures of success - a job, a house, a family - are not necessarily the obvious goals that should be pursued by the next generation.
As she enters the college of her choice (it's up to her), and pursues the educational path of her choice, following her passions and crafting her own life path, I only ask one thing.
If 5 years from now she can say "I feel good about me", then she (and I as a parent) have been successful.
Is it a high paying job as doctor, lawyer, or stockbroker?
Is it fame resulting from some remarkable talent?
Is it her pursuit of one of my dreams - being a naturalist, an environmental engineer, or outdoor educator?
Is it successfully competing with some local, regional, or national peers to be the best at something?
Should I compare her to the athletes, musicians, performers, artists, and academicians in her school and ask her to be as good or better than they are?
All such measures of success are perilous.
How many doctors, lawyers, or hedge fund traders have you met that are satisfied with their lives and look forward to the challenges of their career every day?
How well does fame really serve anyone? Just ask Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, or Michael Jackson's family.
Imprinting unfilled parental dreams on children is likely not sustainable. Children need to find and pursue their own passions.
Competitive spirit is a great thing to have, except when it leads to a winning at all costs mentality, sacrificing ethics along the way. Just ask the steroid using baseball players.
Comparing your children to others is an insult to the individuality of your children. When I think back on my own childhood, my peers who could have been held up as ideal comparisons did not end up with happy or fulfilling lives. Some peaked in High School. A journey of continuous optimism and life improvement, striving to be the best you can be on your own terms, seems like a better course than making comparisons to other people along the way.
The bottom line - asking my daughter to fulfill my expectations, follow in my footsteps. or live up to standards I set does not respect her ability to choose and pursue her own dreams.
Thus, my definition of success for my daughter is simple. It's not related to grades, talent, dollars, or fame.
If she can develop a sense of self-worth, pursing a path designed by her that fuels her self-esteem, then she will be successful.
The world of the 21st century is a complex place. Traditional measures of success - a job, a house, a family - are not necessarily the obvious goals that should be pursued by the next generation.
As she enters the college of her choice (it's up to her), and pursues the educational path of her choice, following her passions and crafting her own life path, I only ask one thing.
If 5 years from now she can say "I feel good about me", then she (and I as a parent) have been successful.
#TSAMastery #af Victimhood = Faithless - Maybe the guy wouldve been grateful. Perhaps, after pleading with his boss,... http://ht.ly/19dZ3m
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Providing quality services with integrity
Healthcare facilities of every kind are looking for ways to lessen the burden on the scarce resources at their disposal while not compromising on the quality of services provided. It is important for healthcare facilities to concentrate on the process of providing quality healthcare, by outsourcing all tasks that are not part of the core business. This enables them to not only retain control over their business in terms of delivering quality healthcare in a timely manner it also enables them to minimize expenses.
Outsourcing medical transcription to a professional service provider benefits the healthcare facilities in the following areas:
- Helping the process of healthcare by creating patient records on time
- Helping quicken the process of reimbursement by creating patient records on time
- Provides protection against litigation by creating records by capturing details of the patient- healthcare professional encounter accurately
- Protect against HIPAA/HITECH violation
- Reducing direct and indirect cost of transcription
To avail the maximum advantages out of the outsourcing option it is important to source a service provider who can provide quality services with integrity.
What is meant by providing quality medical transcription services with integrity?
Quality medical transcription services can be defined as:
Accurate: The information captured in the patient records is vital for providing continuing treatment as well as for coding and billing purposes. A medical transcription service provider providing quality services would ensure that all the information is captured as accurately as possible, by using the right team and the right process.
Timely: To meet the standards of quality medical transcription it is important for the patient- healthcare professional encounter to not only be captured accurately but also to be available on time. The medical transcription service provider would meet turnaround time requirements using the right team and the right technology.
Medical transcription services with integrity can be defined as:
HIPAA/ HITECH compliant : Patient information is sacrosanct and it is important to provide for the security of this information at every level. A medical transcription service provider providing medical transcription services with integrity would ensure that patient information is protected at every level.
Reasonably priced: Lowered cost of transcription is probably one of the main benefits expected from the outsourcing option. A medical transcription service provider providing services with integrity would ensure fair and reasonable price by using a billing method, which is measurable, definable, verifiable, consistent, fair and honest.
Complete technical support for medical transcription : Medical transcription has moved into the digital era and has evolved into a service that extends beyond just record creation by providing technology that adds a lot of value. A medical transcription service provider providing services with integrity would ensure that technology would be advanced to ensure maximum benefit to the healthcare facility/ healthcare professional and still being easy to use.
TransDyne, a leader in outsourced medical transcription industry provides quality services with integrity. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!
To avail medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here.
That Wheel Was Already Invented: the UN Special Rapporteur's Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies
For five years now, we have been writing about concentration and abuse of power in health care, and on specific tactics used predominantly by large health care organizations that threaten the values that physicians and other health care professionals once swore to uphold.
Pharmaceutical companies may not have been the worst offenders when it came to threatening these values, but they have not been laggards. Specific issues we have discussed included (in a peculiar order that I will explain in a minute): failure of the companies' boards of directors to be accountable for misbehavior by its management, sometimes associated with conflicts of interest affecting these board members (e.g., this recent case); outright crime and corruption (e.g., this case); use of key opinion leaders paid by the company to market products cloaked in the mantle of academia; payments made by the companies to patient advocacy groups (e.g., this one), medical societies, and academic institutions that induce institutional conflicts of interest, and enlist these well-reputed organizations as stealth marketers; ridiculously high prices charged for particular medicines, often to particularly vulnerable patients (e.g., this case); suppression and manipulation of clinical research evaluating the companies' products; and deceptive drug marketing practices.
Many other bloggers have written about these issues. Some of them have been widely taken up in the mainstream media. A few have even made it into the medical and health care literature.
But those of us who bring them up have been attacked as a tiny group of pharmascolds (e.g., here), who get in the way of the needed innovation and scientific advances that the pharmaceutical industry generously brings to the public. Despite such attacks, it may be that our concerns are somewhat more universal, although those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo might not want that publicized too much.
A new issue of PLoS Medicine included several articles on drug companies' responsibilities for human rights. One was by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health. I, and I suspect most of even our Health Care Renewal readers were not familiar with that office. I also confess to being unaware that he had published a report to the UN General Assembly entitled Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines, which included 47 specific guidelines.
Amazingly enough, it turns out that some of these guidelines seemed to directly address the issues raised above, to wit:
Board of Directors' Accountability
Anti-Corruption
Disclosure of Financial Support
Drug Pricing
Suppression and Manipulation of Clinical Research
Deceptive Drug Marketing
Needless to say, I can see no evidence that any big pharmaceutical companies are trying to adhere to any of these guidelines. Somehow I suspect that those who are supporting the vested interests of big pharmaceutical corporations may not all have that much respect for the United Nations. However, I think that the Special Rapporteur's guidelines lend more credibility to the argument that we need better leadership of health care organizations, and specifically that such organizations should follow clear ethical precepts, and their leadership should be held accountable when they do not.
So the next time someone calls you a "pharmascold," you can say, "yeah, yeah, so is the UN Special Rapporteur."
Pharmaceutical companies may not have been the worst offenders when it came to threatening these values, but they have not been laggards. Specific issues we have discussed included (in a peculiar order that I will explain in a minute): failure of the companies' boards of directors to be accountable for misbehavior by its management, sometimes associated with conflicts of interest affecting these board members (e.g., this recent case); outright crime and corruption (e.g., this case); use of key opinion leaders paid by the company to market products cloaked in the mantle of academia; payments made by the companies to patient advocacy groups (e.g., this one), medical societies, and academic institutions that induce institutional conflicts of interest, and enlist these well-reputed organizations as stealth marketers; ridiculously high prices charged for particular medicines, often to particularly vulnerable patients (e.g., this case); suppression and manipulation of clinical research evaluating the companies' products; and deceptive drug marketing practices.
Many other bloggers have written about these issues. Some of them have been widely taken up in the mainstream media. A few have even made it into the medical and health care literature.
But those of us who bring them up have been attacked as a tiny group of pharmascolds (e.g., here), who get in the way of the needed innovation and scientific advances that the pharmaceutical industry generously brings to the public. Despite such attacks, it may be that our concerns are somewhat more universal, although those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo might not want that publicized too much.
A new issue of PLoS Medicine included several articles on drug companies' responsibilities for human rights. One was by a former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health. I, and I suspect most of even our Health Care Renewal readers were not familiar with that office. I also confess to being unaware that he had published a report to the UN General Assembly entitled Human Rights Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Companies in Relation to Access to Medicines, which included 47 specific guidelines.
Amazingly enough, it turns out that some of these guidelines seemed to directly address the issues raised above, to wit:
Board of Directors' Accountability
11. The company should have a governance system that includes direct board level responsibility and accountability for its access to medicines policy.
Anti-Corruption
15. A company should publicly adopt effective anti-corruption policies and measures, and comply with relevant national law implementing the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Disclosure of Financial Support
18. The company should annually disclose its financial and other support to key opinion leaders, patient associations, political parties and candidates, trade associations, academic departments, research centres and others, through which it seeks to influence public policy and national, regional and international law and practice. The disclosure should extend to amounts, beneficiaries and channels by which the support is provided.
19. When providing any financial or other support, the company should require all recipients to publicly disclose such support on all appropriate occasions.
Drug Pricing
33. When formulating and implementing its access to medicines policy, the company should consider all the arrangements at its disposal with a view to ensuring that its medicines are affordable to as many people as possible. In keeping with Guideline 5, the company should give particular attention to ensuring its medicines are accessible to disadvantaged individuals, communities and populations, including those living in poverty and the very poorest in all markets. The arrangements should include, for example, differential pricing between countries, differential pricing within countries, commercial voluntary licences, not-for-profit voluntary licences, donation programmes, and public private partnerships.
34. The arrangements should take into account a country�s stage of economic development, as well as the differential purchasing power of populations within a country. The same medicine, for example, may be priced and packaged differently for the private and public sectors within the same country.
35. The arrangements should extend to all medicines manufactured by the company, including those for non-communicable conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes.
Suppression and Manipulation of Clinical Research
39. The company should take effective measures to ensure that all information bearing upon the safety, efficacy and possible side effects of a medicine are easily accessible to individuals so they can make informed decisions about its possible use.
Deceptive Drug Marketing
41. The company should publicly disclose its promotional and marketing policies and activities, including costs.
Needless to say, I can see no evidence that any big pharmaceutical companies are trying to adhere to any of these guidelines. Somehow I suspect that those who are supporting the vested interests of big pharmaceutical corporations may not all have that much respect for the United Nations. However, I think that the Special Rapporteur's guidelines lend more credibility to the argument that we need better leadership of health care organizations, and specifically that such organizations should follow clear ethical precepts, and their leadership should be held accountable when they do not.
So the next time someone calls you a "pharmascold," you can say, "yeah, yeah, so is the UN Special Rapporteur."
ACHARYA N.G.RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY JUNIOR ASSISTANT-CUM-TYPIST EXAM PATTERN
ACHARYA N.G.RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, RAJENDRANGAR, HYDERABAD �500 030
ANDHRA PRADESH
JUNIOR ASSISTANT-CUM-TYPIST .. 100 posts
Qualifications
1. A University Degree and Diploma in Computer Applications from an Institute
recognized by Government of A.P. (OR) from any other Institute who offers
the Diploma Courses in Computer Applications.
(OR)
B.C.A. Degree
(OR)
A Degree with Computer Science as one of the elective subjects
AND
2. A pass in Govt. Technical Examination in Typewriting by the Lower Grade.
Age:
The above maximum age relaxation from 34 years to 39 years is applicable only for this recruitment of 100 JACT Posts.
Method of Selection:
Written test:
Paper Subject No.of Maximum Duration
Questions marks
1. General Knowledge 50 50 50 minutes
2. General English 50 50 50 minutes
Syllabus
Paper � I: General Knowledge
A.P. in History, Geography, Civics, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology and day-to-day Current Affairs.
Paper-II: General English
1. Grammar
2. Comprehension
3. Precise writing etc.,
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, RAJENDRANGAR, HYDERABAD �500 030
ANDHRA PRADESH
JUNIOR ASSISTANT-CUM-TYPIST .. 100 posts
Qualifications
1. A University Degree and Diploma in Computer Applications from an Institute
recognized by Government of A.P. (OR) from any other Institute who offers
the Diploma Courses in Computer Applications.
(OR)
B.C.A. Degree
(OR)
A Degree with Computer Science as one of the elective subjects
AND
2. A pass in Govt. Technical Examination in Typewriting by the Lower Grade.
Age:
The above maximum age relaxation from 34 years to 39 years is applicable only for this recruitment of 100 JACT Posts.
Method of Selection:
Written test:
Paper Subject No.of Maximum Duration
Questions marks
1. General Knowledge 50 50 50 minutes
2. General English 50 50 50 minutes
Syllabus
Paper � I: General Knowledge
A.P. in History, Geography, Civics, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology and day-to-day Current Affairs.
Paper-II: General English
1. Grammar
2. Comprehension
3. Precise writing etc.,
ACHARYA N.G.RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION OFFICER EXAM PATTERN
ACHARYA N.G.RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, RAJENDRANGAR, HYDERABAD �500 030
ANDHRA PRADESH
Qualifications
1. Two years Diploma in Agriculture Awarded by ANGRAU.
(OR)
(i) A Pass in Two years Intermediate Examination of Board of Intermediate
Education with any two of the following subjects:-
(a) Physical Sciences
(b) Biological Sciences or Natural Sciences
(c) Agricultural Sciences
(d) Vocational Course in Agriculture
(NOTE: Preference shall be given to the Two Year Diploma holders in Agriculture Awarded by ANGRAU).
Age:
The above maximum age relaxation from 34 years to 39 years is applicable only for this recruitment of 23 AEO posts.
Paper Subject No.of Questions Maximum
marks Duration
1. General Knowledge 40 40 40 minutes
2. General Science 40 40 40 minutes
Syllabus
Paper � I: General Knowledge
Syllabus formulated by the Board of Secondary School Certificate of A.P. in History, Geography, Civics, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology and day-to-day Current Affairs.
Paper-II: General Science
Biology, Physics and Chemistry
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, RAJENDRANGAR, HYDERABAD �500 030
ANDHRA PRADESH
AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION OFFICER .. 23 posts
Qualifications
1. Two years Diploma in Agriculture Awarded by ANGRAU.
(OR)
(i) A Pass in Two years Intermediate Examination of Board of Intermediate
Education with any two of the following subjects:-
(a) Physical Sciences
(b) Biological Sciences or Natural Sciences
(c) Agricultural Sciences
(d) Vocational Course in Agriculture
(NOTE: Preference shall be given to the Two Year Diploma holders in Agriculture Awarded by ANGRAU).
Age:
The above maximum age relaxation from 34 years to 39 years is applicable only for this recruitment of 23 AEO posts.
Method of Selection
1. Written test:
1. Written test:
Paper Subject No.of Questions Maximum
marks Duration
1. General Knowledge 40 40 40 minutes
2. General Science 40 40 40 minutes
Syllabus
Paper � I: General Knowledge
Syllabus formulated by the Board of Secondary School Certificate of A.P. in History, Geography, Civics, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology and day-to-day Current Affairs.
Paper-II: General Science
Biology, Physics and Chemistry
A Milestone for Vocabulary Resources
The Vocabulary Task Force of the HIT Standards Committee is hard at work specifying the vocabularies and codesets that should be publicly available to accelerate certification and meaningful use efforts.
Today, Kaiser Permanente announced the donation of its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO�) for U.S. distribution through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) so that all health care providers�large and small�can benefit from the translation-enabling technology.
This donation makes the results of years of work at Kaiser Permanente available to help U.S. health professionals and hospitals achieve key meaningful use standards set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The donation includes:
1. Over 75,000 extensions to existing vocabularies (new concepts, natural language descriptions for clinicians and patient friendly terms)
2. Derivative works (crossmaps of vocabularies to each other)
3. Toolkits for collaborative editing
In addition to the Kaiser donation, below is a guide to other freely available resources, such as crossmaps from SNOMED CT to ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM.
The CM versions used in the US (produced by the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC) are different from the basic ICD-9 and ICD-10 as released by the World Health Organization. There is a project to map SNOMED CT to the basic ICD-10 that is being undertaken by the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), which is the owner of SNOMED CT.
SNOMED CT to ICD-9-CM - There are two free mappings from SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM, a basic "conceptual" mapping which is released with SNOMED CT (free to all US users under the UMLS license) and a draft rule-based mapping for the reimbursement use case. The rule-based map includes IF-THEN rules for selecting the appropriate ICD-9-CM code for a condition in those cases when a SNOMED CT concept could map to more than one ICD-9-CM entry. For example, in order to select the appropriate ICD-9-CM code for infertility, you must look elsewhere in the patient's record to determine whether the patient is male or female. Having received modest feedback on the draft mapping, the next step is to produce a current rule-based map that covers all entries in the SNOMED CT CORE problem list subset, which we hope to complete by early 2011.
SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM - NLM is currently inserting ICD-10-CM into the UMLS Metathesaurus, which will create the synonymous mappings between SNOMED CT and ICD-10-CM. When this step has been completed (by November 2010), we will work on a rule-based mapping between the SNOMED CT CORE Problem list subset and ICD-10-CM. This should become available in later in 2011.
All of the above information refers to mappings of diagnoses and conditions - not procedures.
For completeness, access to DRG and Medicare/Medicaid data resources is described below.
The �GROUPER� program, used by Medicare associates ICD-9-CM codes with specific �diagnosis-related� codes. These codes, previously called �DRGs� (�diagnosis-related groups�) are now properly called Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRGs). The GROUPER logic, which was developed and is maintained by 3M/Health Information Systems, is updated annually as part of the regulatory update process required for Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System.
The software for the GROUPER is distributed for a fee from NTIS. The complete documentation of the GROUPER logic/Definitions Manual is distributed for a fee from 3M.
Medicare or Medicaid data is available for research from CMS�s Research Data Assistance Center (�ResDAC�), which is a CMS contractor that provides free assistance to academic, government and non-profit researchers interested in using Medicare and/or Medicaid data for their research. ResDAC is staffed by a consortium of epidemiologists, public health specialists, health services researchers, biostatisticians, and health informatics specialists from the University of Minnesota. Please see the ResDAC website for more information.
Today, Kaiser Permanente announced the donation of its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) to the International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO�) for U.S. distribution through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) so that all health care providers�large and small�can benefit from the translation-enabling technology.
This donation makes the results of years of work at Kaiser Permanente available to help U.S. health professionals and hospitals achieve key meaningful use standards set forth by the Office of the National Coordinator of Health IT and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The donation includes:
1. Over 75,000 extensions to existing vocabularies (new concepts, natural language descriptions for clinicians and patient friendly terms)
2. Derivative works (crossmaps of vocabularies to each other)
3. Toolkits for collaborative editing
In addition to the Kaiser donation, below is a guide to other freely available resources, such as crossmaps from SNOMED CT to ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM.
The CM versions used in the US (produced by the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC) are different from the basic ICD-9 and ICD-10 as released by the World Health Organization. There is a project to map SNOMED CT to the basic ICD-10 that is being undertaken by the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO), which is the owner of SNOMED CT.
SNOMED CT to ICD-9-CM - There are two free mappings from SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM, a basic "conceptual" mapping which is released with SNOMED CT (free to all US users under the UMLS license) and a draft rule-based mapping for the reimbursement use case. The rule-based map includes IF-THEN rules for selecting the appropriate ICD-9-CM code for a condition in those cases when a SNOMED CT concept could map to more than one ICD-9-CM entry. For example, in order to select the appropriate ICD-9-CM code for infertility, you must look elsewhere in the patient's record to determine whether the patient is male or female. Having received modest feedback on the draft mapping, the next step is to produce a current rule-based map that covers all entries in the SNOMED CT CORE problem list subset, which we hope to complete by early 2011.
SNOMED CT to ICD-10-CM - NLM is currently inserting ICD-10-CM into the UMLS Metathesaurus, which will create the synonymous mappings between SNOMED CT and ICD-10-CM. When this step has been completed (by November 2010), we will work on a rule-based mapping between the SNOMED CT CORE Problem list subset and ICD-10-CM. This should become available in later in 2011.
All of the above information refers to mappings of diagnoses and conditions - not procedures.
For completeness, access to DRG and Medicare/Medicaid data resources is described below.
The �GROUPER� program, used by Medicare associates ICD-9-CM codes with specific �diagnosis-related� codes. These codes, previously called �DRGs� (�diagnosis-related groups�) are now properly called Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRGs). The GROUPER logic, which was developed and is maintained by 3M/Health Information Systems, is updated annually as part of the regulatory update process required for Medicare Inpatient Prospective Payment System.
The software for the GROUPER is distributed for a fee from NTIS. The complete documentation of the GROUPER logic/Definitions Manual is distributed for a fee from 3M.
Medicare or Medicaid data is available for research from CMS�s Research Data Assistance Center (�ResDAC�), which is a CMS contractor that provides free assistance to academic, government and non-profit researchers interested in using Medicare and/or Medicaid data for their research. ResDAC is staffed by a consortium of epidemiologists, public health specialists, health services researchers, biostatisticians, and health informatics specialists from the University of Minnesota. Please see the ResDAC website for more information.
#TSAMastery #af My Dirty Little Secret Lover - Ok, so our dirty little secret is out. Many of you know us, but do yo... http://ht.ly/19d3aO
#TSAMastery #af What Happen with your dream ? - In my last blog I talked about dreams vs legacy, and thanks to every... http://ht.ly/19d3aU
Food Allergies and Bullying Study Results
Forty-three percent of school-age children with food allergies report bully waving allergen in their face in a threatening manner. Twenty percent of food allergic students report the teasing and harassment came from teachers and staff.
What?!?!?
Read the results of this study, conducted by Mount Sinai, then talk to your child. Explain to young children what bullying is and what they should do if they feel threatened. Develop a plan with older children about how to handle a bullying situation. Share this research with your school nurse, guidance counselor, teacher and administrators. Bullying is never okay. Bullying with food allergens is dangerous and needs to be stopped immediately. Does your school have an anti-bullying policy? Does the policy mention food allergy? The authors of this study say it should.
What?!?!?
Read the results of this study, conducted by Mount Sinai, then talk to your child. Explain to young children what bullying is and what they should do if they feel threatened. Develop a plan with older children about how to handle a bullying situation. Share this research with your school nurse, guidance counselor, teacher and administrators. Bullying is never okay. Bullying with food allergens is dangerous and needs to be stopped immediately. Does your school have an anti-bullying policy? Does the policy mention food allergy? The authors of this study say it should.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Offering effective solutions
Much has been said about healthcare, one often ignored factor about healthcare is that, it is a business in spite of being a life & death/ quality of life improving service. Like any other business the goals of healthcare facilities are straightforward; to be able to provide quality healthcare services while still maintaining a healthy bottom-line. In order to achieve these goals it is important for healthcare facilities to concentrate on their core activities and outsource all other activities that are not part of the core.
Outsourcing non-core activities will have an impact on the following:
- Improved focus on the core business of providing quality healthcare
- Reducing allocation of limited resources on non-core activities
The healthcare process is a complex one, drawing inputs from numerous sources to complete the process of providing quality healthcare. One such input that contributes significantly to the healthcare process is the information captured in patient records. Medical transcription is the process of creating patient medical records by transcribing the audio files of the patient-healthcare professional encounter into text format. Patient records are not only vital for providing continued care to patients they also play a vital role in the process of reimbursement.
However medical transcription is a process that requires the right combination of people, processes and technology to be able to be accurate, timely, secure and cost effective. To be able to produce medical transcription that meets all these criteria, the healthcare facility has to dedicate a substantial portion of its resources in terms of investment, manpower, time and other resources to the process of medical transcription.
Outsourcing medical transcription has proven to be an effective solution for the medical transcription needs of healthcare facilities without compromising quality and security standards. In fact outsourcing medical transcription has proven to curb both direct and indirect expenses incurred for in-house medical transcription.
How does outsourcing medical transcription offer effective solutions?
The word effective has been defined as producing or capable of producing an intended result. By this definition outsourced medical transcription services are effective. They meet the criteria used to evaluate medical transcription:
Accuracy: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that patient records are created with maximum accuracy. The medical transcription service provider would ensure accuracy by having a well-trained team of medical transcriptionists working the transcripts and by having an effective quality process to ensure errors are minimized.
Turnaround time: Outsourcing medical transcription would ensure timely creation of patient records by using the right technology, the right process and the right team. Meeting turnaround time standards would ensure that the process of providing healthcare is unhindered and also ensure that the process of reimbursement takes place on time.
Security: Preserving the confidentiality of patient records is an important consideration for healthcare facilities. By outsourcing medical transcription the onus of providing for the security of patient information during the transcription process is on the service provider. Security of patient information would effectively ensured by the medical transcription service provider by securing processes, technology and the team.
Lowering costs: Outsourcing medical transcription ensures that not only is the cost per line of transcription reduced by 40%-50% but is also restricted to the cost per line of transcription. All indirect and overhead expenses are eliminated
Other benefits: Apart from being accurate, timely, secure and cost effective, outsourced medical transcription offers other benefits incurring from the technology used, like:
- Retaining familiar modes of dictation
- Flexible modes of document delivery
- Remote printing and faxing
- HL7 interface etc.
TransDyne, a leader in the outsourced medical transcription industry offers complete medical transcription solutions. TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!
To avail effective medical transcription solutions from TransDyne, click here.
More Tales of Hospital Executive Compensation: Pay for What?
I have collected another series of stories from the wild and wacky world of health care executive compensation. These are from three different hospitals/ hospital systems, ordered from smallest to largest.
Jefferson Healthcare
This story, from Jefferson County, Washington state, came from the Peninsula Daily News:
Note that the amount above is apparently salary, not total compensation, which could well be higher.
Lakeland Regional Medical Center
This story, from Lakeland, Florida, came from the Lakeland Ledger.
Note that LRMC is a bigger institution that Jefferson Healthcare, with operating revenue just under $650 million. However, it is now having financial woes, as reported in a separate story in the Ledger.
UCLA Medical Center
Our last story, from the Los Angeles Times, is about a large, prestigious academic medical center.
Why was this divisive? It turns out that the University of California system is in deep financial trouble.
In particular,
So in times of such financial stress, why increase the compensation of the UCLA medical center CEO so much?
Summary
So to summarize, the CEO of a tiny hospital gets $225,000 in salary, presumably more in total compensation. The CEO of a mid-size medical center with stagnant revenues and rising costs got over $850,000 in total compensation, while 11 other executives, mostly non-physicians, all got more than $180,000. The CEO of a large medical center, within a university system with a seriously underfunded pension plan which is increasing deductions from all employees' pay, and contemplating reduced retirement programs for new hires, got a $210,000 bonus and a $410,000 raise for total compensation of more than $1.3 million.
So once again we see that even in tiny, public hospitals, the CEOs are paid well, and in bigger hospitals, even those in the midst of financial problems, the CEOs are paid very well.
There does seem to be a rough correlation with hospital size. Executives, and their boosters like to imply that the bigger the institution, the harder the job. Keep in mind, however, that most hospitals, like most modern corporations, are highly pyramidal. The CEO hardly manages each and every worker. Rather, the CEO manages a few top executives, who in turn manage a few middle-managers, etc, etc. For example, a Bloomberg report noted that only 11 top executive report to the CEO of the huge Bank Of America.
Another claim by CEOs and their defenders is that it is all about pay for performance. As noted above, and in other posts about executive compensation, the criteria for performance are rarely stated, and hardly explicit. Anecdotally, there are many examples, including one above, of financially stressed institutions cutting back in other areas, but paying top executives more. As in the last case above, nearly every CEO seems to be doing a wonderful job, at least according to the boards of directors or trustees to whom he or she is supposed to be accountable.
In fact, the real lesson seems to be that top managers almost always do well financially, regardless of performance, regardless of financial pressures on their organizations, and do better and better the longer they hold their jobs. Top executives are really different from you and me.
I say again, if we do not hold health care leaders accountable, if we do not provide them with incentives that are proportional to their actual performance, why should we expect health care organizations to do any more than satisfy their leaders' self-interest?
Jefferson Healthcare
This story, from Jefferson County, Washington state, came from the Peninsula Daily News:
When Mike Glenn takes over the Jefferson Healthcare CEO office Oct. 4, he will be receiving $225,000 annually to run the 25-bed publicly funded hospital.
And he will become the highest-paid public official in Jefferson County.
Jefferson Healthcare's budget is $65 million, and it employs 360 full-time workers and about 550 part-timers.
Note that the amount above is apparently salary, not total compensation, which could well be higher.
Lakeland Regional Medical Center
This story, from Lakeland, Florida, came from the Lakeland Ledger.
The latest IRS report available on Lakeland Regional Medical Center shows, for the first time, how much LRMC officials receive in base pay and how much in 'bonus and incentive compensation' based on meeting goals assigned them.
Not-for-profit hospitals are required to release their IRS reports. Previously, those reports combined salary and bonuses, which may or may not be awarded in a given year.
Jack Stephens, president and chief executive, was paid $856,514. Of that, $644,034 was his base pay and $212,480 was bonuses.
Second-highest paid was Paul Powers, vice president and chief financial officer. He earned a total $435,581, of which $352,661 was base pay and $82,920 in bonuses.
Third was Dr. William Sadowski, psychiatrist, earning $430,117, of which $149,226 was base pay and $280,891 bonuses.
Others listed as highest compensated:
Dr. Edward Sammer, chief medical officer, $404,789 ($327,607 base pay, $77,182 bonus).
Dr. Olumide O. Sobowale, who heads trauma services, $306,792 ($227,692 base pay, $79,100 bonus).
Janet Fansler, vice president/cardiac and specialty care, $266,672 ($215,954 base, $50,718 bonus).
Mary Ford, chief information officer, $264,283 ($213,978 base, $50,305 bonus).
Carole Philipson, vice president support services and facilities, $246,530 ($199,474 base, $47,056 bonus).
Hugh Autry, vice president acute/surgical care, $245,216 ($198,408 base, $46,808 bonus).
Jeffery Payne, vice president human resources, $229,304 ($185,696 base, $43,608 bonus).
John Schliesser, vice president planning and external relations, $226,571 ($183,363 base, $43,208 bonus).
Dr. Michael A. Campanelli, neurosurgeon, $197,887, not divided into base/bonus.
Ken Menefee, executive director LRMC Foundation, $181,045 ($151,142 base, $29,953 bonus).
Dr. Joy L. Jackson, physician adviser, $164,923, not divided into base/bonus.
Dr. Rajan K. Raj, trauma surgeon, $141,344, not divided into base/bonus.
Note that LRMC is a bigger institution that Jefferson Healthcare, with operating revenue just under $650 million. However, it is now having financial woes, as reported in a separate story in the Ledger.
Lakeland Regional Medical Center's rates will increase an average 10 percent, for the third year in a row, in the fiscal year starting Friday.
These continual increases reflect the financial pressures affecting hospitals, patients and the health care system nationwide.
Costs are increasing for almost everything LRMC pays for - drugs, bad debts, charity care, write-offs to managed-care and government insurance plans, insurance and utilities among them.
The number of hospitalized patients is expected go up very little, an increase of slightly less than 2 percent, according to Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Paul Powers.
UCLA Medical Center
Our last story, from the Los Angeles Times, is about a large, prestigious academic medical center.
First, the board [of regents] approved $3.1 million in bonuses for medical center executives that are linked to efficiencies and improvements in patient health. That money, which comes from hospital revenues, will be distributed among 37 UC hospital leaders across the state.
As part of that group, Feinberg, UCLA's hospital system chief executive officer, will receive a $210,000 bonus. But in a more divisive matter, UCLA officials also received the regents' approval to give Feinberg an extra raise of about $410,000, boosting his total compensation to more than $1.3 million.
Why was this divisive? It turns out that the University of California system is in deep financial trouble.
The University of California regents took steps Thursday to shore up the university's badly underfunded retirement plans by raising the amounts employees and the university will be expected to contribute to them.
In particular,
Meeting at UC San Francisco, the regents unanimously approved a plan that will raise contributions to the pension and retirement health plans over two years to 5% from the current 2% of employees' paychecks, and to 10% from 4% of payroll for the university. The change will take effect quickly for about half of UC's 115,000 employees, including its faculty, but must be negotiated with its unionized employees.
More tough choices are ahead as UC tries to fill an estimated $21-billion liability gap in its retirement plans. Until this spring, neither the university nor its employees had made any contributions to the plans for 20 years.
In December, the regents are expected to review proposals for even more extensive changes, including one that would create a less generous program for employees hired after 2013 and boost the minimum retirement age to 55 from 50.
So in times of such financial stress, why increase the compensation of the UCLA medical center CEO so much?
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said Feinberg was doing an excellent job and was being wooed by other employers. 'Keeping this team together is essential,' he said.
Summary
So to summarize, the CEO of a tiny hospital gets $225,000 in salary, presumably more in total compensation. The CEO of a mid-size medical center with stagnant revenues and rising costs got over $850,000 in total compensation, while 11 other executives, mostly non-physicians, all got more than $180,000. The CEO of a large medical center, within a university system with a seriously underfunded pension plan which is increasing deductions from all employees' pay, and contemplating reduced retirement programs for new hires, got a $210,000 bonus and a $410,000 raise for total compensation of more than $1.3 million.
So once again we see that even in tiny, public hospitals, the CEOs are paid well, and in bigger hospitals, even those in the midst of financial problems, the CEOs are paid very well.
There does seem to be a rough correlation with hospital size. Executives, and their boosters like to imply that the bigger the institution, the harder the job. Keep in mind, however, that most hospitals, like most modern corporations, are highly pyramidal. The CEO hardly manages each and every worker. Rather, the CEO manages a few top executives, who in turn manage a few middle-managers, etc, etc. For example, a Bloomberg report noted that only 11 top executive report to the CEO of the huge Bank Of America.
Another claim by CEOs and their defenders is that it is all about pay for performance. As noted above, and in other posts about executive compensation, the criteria for performance are rarely stated, and hardly explicit. Anecdotally, there are many examples, including one above, of financially stressed institutions cutting back in other areas, but paying top executives more. As in the last case above, nearly every CEO seems to be doing a wonderful job, at least according to the boards of directors or trustees to whom he or she is supposed to be accountable.
In fact, the real lesson seems to be that top managers almost always do well financially, regardless of performance, regardless of financial pressures on their organizations, and do better and better the longer they hold their jobs. Top executives are really different from you and me.
I say again, if we do not hold health care leaders accountable, if we do not provide them with incentives that are proportional to their actual performance, why should we expect health care organizations to do any more than satisfy their leaders' self-interest?
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Clarifying the Meaningful Use Quality Measures
As the country prepares for meaningful use stage 1, many are studying the functionality of their EHRs, hospital information systems, and data warehouses to ensure they can produce the ambulatory and hospital quality measures.
This has led to many implementation questions.
The ambulatory measures and guidance are detailed on a previous blog.
The hospital quality measures for 2011-2012 are found in pages 303-305 of the Final Rule, available here.
Additional guidance from CMS is available here.
The detailed HITSP documentation detailing the standards for computing numerators and denominators is available here.
The most useful, focused, and streamlined materials are the definitions of the quality measures. These measures are encoded according to the HL7 Health Quality Measures Format. To view them
1. Download the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file.
2. Create a new folder on your hard drive.
3. Extract the entire contents of the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file into the new folder.
4. Open the new folder.
5. Double click on a file to open and read the individual .xml files using your internet browser
For the two Emergency Department (ED) Throughput measures, ED-1/NQF 0495 and ED-2/NQF 0497, the information on the numerators/denominators/exclusions is available here. To fall into the admitted to the emergency department denominator a patient must do two things:
1) Initially present at the ED
Then either 2) be subsequently admitted to the inpatient side or 2) receive observation services.
A patient seen in the ED who is neither admitted or receives observation services would not be in the denominator.
Hospitals have varying rules about where they provide what type of observation services and patients could receive observation services without ever going through the ED just like they could be admitted to the hospital without ever going through the ED. It is not CMS' intent to expand into Place of Service (POS) Code 22 (Outpatient Hospital - A portion of a hospital which provides diagnostic, therapeutic (both surgical and non-surgical), and rehabilitation services to sick or injured persons who do not require hospitalization or institutionalization.). This is why CMS had to include the first criteria.
I hope these resources are helpful to you.
This has led to many implementation questions.
The ambulatory measures and guidance are detailed on a previous blog.
The hospital quality measures for 2011-2012 are found in pages 303-305 of the Final Rule, available here.
Additional guidance from CMS is available here.
The detailed HITSP documentation detailing the standards for computing numerators and denominators is available here.
The most useful, focused, and streamlined materials are the definitions of the quality measures. These measures are encoded according to the HL7 Health Quality Measures Format. To view them
1. Download the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file.
2. Create a new folder on your hard drive.
3. Extract the entire contents of the HITSP_Quality_Measures_20100430.zip file into the new folder.
4. Open the new folder.
5. Double click on a file to open and read the individual .xml files using your internet browser
For the two Emergency Department (ED) Throughput measures, ED-1/NQF 0495 and ED-2/NQF 0497, the information on the numerators/denominators/exclusions is available here. To fall into the admitted to the emergency department denominator a patient must do two things:
1) Initially present at the ED
Then either 2) be subsequently admitted to the inpatient side or 2) receive observation services.
A patient seen in the ED who is neither admitted or receives observation services would not be in the denominator.
Hospitals have varying rules about where they provide what type of observation services and patients could receive observation services without ever going through the ED just like they could be admitted to the hospital without ever going through the ED. It is not CMS' intent to expand into Place of Service (POS) Code 22 (Outpatient Hospital - A portion of a hospital which provides diagnostic, therapeutic (both surgical and non-surgical), and rehabilitation services to sick or injured persons who do not require hospitalization or institutionalization.). This is why CMS had to include the first criteria.
I hope these resources are helpful to you.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Medical transcription outsourcing: Playing an important role
Patient records are a vital element in the healthcare process. They are essential for not only patient care but play an important role in the commercial, statutory and medico legal aspects. Medical transcription is the process by which patient records are created. Medical transcriptionists are the scribes who faithfully transform the narration of the healthcare professionals into text format, making it available to healthcare professionals and other staff.
Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be not only economical, but also efficient and effective in terms of accuracy, turnaround time, security and technology. In recent past there have been many arguments over the role of the medical transcriptionists/medical transcription service providers in the process of patient record creation. It is important to enumerate the reasons why medical transcription is so important to the healthcare process. Given below are the reasons that highlight the importance of the role played by medical transcription:
Quantity: Outsourced medical transcription services are essential to the process of record creation because of the sheer volume of records to be created. The number of people seeking healthcare services has dramatically increased due to various reasons like the aging population, lifestyle changes, increased stress levels etc. It is impossible for healthcare professionals or support staff to cope with the huge volumes transcription requirements, while still continuing to provide quality care.
Preference: Medical transcription has been proven to be the preference of healthcare professionals for creation of patient records. Healthcare professionals are starved for time and like the convenience of being able to dictate notes in the time available to them. Moreover outsourced medical transcription service providers offer the options to healthcare professionals to retain their familiar modes of dictation. Outsourced medical transcription also offers added benefits like different document delivery modes as per the preference of the healthcare professionals
Detailed: Medical transcription allows the healthcare professionals to capture maximum information in a patient record. This comes in handy in many circumstances, by allowing the healthcare professional to ponder over the health conditions of the patient and arrive at the correct diagnosis, helps in continued care after a time lag and many other situations where maximum information can aid the treatment process.
Increasing productivity: By outsourcing medical transcription the healthcare professionals are able to maximize their productive hours by concentrating on what they specialize in- providing quality healthcare
Understanding the process: Medical transcription service providers understand the process of healthcare and can tailor their services to suit the needs of healthcare professionals. They are familiar with the requirements of each specialty and are can serve the needs of healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals in the best possible way
Aids risk management: Detailed patient records play an important role in case of litigation. These provide detailed evidence about the process and quality of care provided to the patient
Applying context: Medical transcription service provider have teams of trained and experienced medical transcriptionists who can apply context to garbled/confusing audio to create accurate records
Maintaining standards: Outsourcing medical transcription helps maintain the standards of patient records. Medical transcription service providers would not only aid in maintaining standards of accuracy, turnaround time and security, they would also ensure reports are created in the formats/ templates required
Helping provide hands on care: Outsourced medical transcription services help the healthcare professionals make the most of their limited time resources and help them focus on what they do best – providing hands on quality healthcare to patients.
Apart from aiding healthcare facilities/healthcare professionals in the process of providing quality healthcare, medical transcription service providers also aid them in the commercial aspects in two ways:
- By reducing cost of transcription dramatically
- By quickening the receivables cycle
Considering the vital role played by medical transcription services, it is important to choose the right service provider.
TransDyne offers quality medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use!
To avail outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here
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Food Allergies at School: More Tips
As the new school year gets underway, do not forget about "special area" teachers when creating a food allergy management plan.
- Food allergens may be hidden in art supplies. Make sure the art teacher is aware of your child's allergies and contacts parents if there are any questions about supplies used in the classroom.
- In music class, many instruments are passed around for children to try. Find out about the cleaning of these instruments. Ask for a specially designated set for your child if you are especially concerned.
- Computer kepyboards may harbor food allergens. Does your child (or teacher)need to wipe down the keyboard before beginning computer class?
Unconscious in the Emergency Department
As State Health Information Exchanges and Federal efforts (NHIN Connect/NHIN Direct) implement the data sharing technology that will enable all providers in the country to achieve Meaningful Use Stage 1, I'm often asked "but when will this healthcare information exchange technology be able to retrieve all my records from everywhere when I'm lying unconscious in the Emergency Department and cannot give a history?"
Here are my thoughts about the trajectory we're on and how it will lead us to supporting the "Unconscious in the ED" use case.
Meaningful Use Stage 1 is about capturing data electronically in EHRs. Getting healthcare data in electronic form is foundational to any data exchanges. By 2011 we should have medication lists, problem lists, allergies, and summaries available from EHRs.
The data exchanges in Stage 1 are simple pushes of data from point A to point B - from provider to public health, from provider to provider, and from provider to pharmacy. There is no master patient index, no record locator service, and no centralized database containing everyone's lifetime health record.
The Stage 1 data exchanges are the right first step. Serving as chair for a health information exchange for 12 years, I can tell you that pushing data from point A to point B builds trust and breaks down political barriers to data sharing. The policy needed to guide push technology is straightforward, since the parties involved in the exchange are limited - the sender and the receiver. Consent can be simple. For a referral, this might be "do you permit me to send your data to a specialist so that your care can be coordinated?"
But how are we going to get to a model that supports the pulling of data by emergency rooms?
There are several engineering approaches.
One is to create a master patient index for a state or region so that the identity of patients seeking care is known. Once we have a master patient index, we can build a record locator service to keep track of every site the patient visits. Then, we can build a consent repository so that the patient can control what is shared. During an emergency department encounter, summaries can be pulled from those sites listed in the record locator service which the patient has agreed to share.
I know that this approach works, because it is what I implemented at the hospitals of CareGroup in 1997 as the focus of my MIT thesis.
However, it does have scalability problems. Given that there are 500,000 doctors and 5000 acute care hospitals, the engineering complexity to pull data from multiple, disparate sites is significant and it requires that all sites support real time queries 24x7x365, maintaining the necessary security and robustness to enable such interchange. That's a tall order.
An alternative, that is simpler from an engineering perspective and achievable with the Stage 1 push technologies looks like this.
What if payers, providers, and private vendors offered something called "the electronic medical home"? The patient needs to pick some hosting option they trust. Just as Stage 1 of meaningful use supports push transactions from provider to provider, the same transactions could be pushed to the electronic medical home designated by the patient. This has the added advantage of providing a means to support the patient engagement provisions of Stage 1 (deliver summaries of ambulatory encounters within 3 business days, deliver inpatient summaries upon request, deliver lifetime health summaries upon request). If every producer of data (lab, pharmacy, hospital, eligible professional etc) pushed a copy of the data they generated to the electronic medical home chosen by the patient, then the patient could become steward of their lifetime medical record hosted by the trusted agent of their choice. Medical home data would be complete and constantly updated by data producers.
Patients could store their electronic medical home designation on a card in their wallet or on a medical alert bracelet. If patients visited the emergency room of a hospital they had registered at previously, the hospital would have a record of the patient's electronic medical home selection since the hospital would be one of the medical home data sources.
Ok, but what if the patient arrives in the Emergency Department, naked and unconscious so there is no electronic medical home designation on their body? I can tell you that in all my years of practicing emergency medicine, I have never treated a naked and unconscious patient, but let's think about the scenario.
There could be a national or a federated regional database which keeps a record of the designated electronic medical home - an "electronic medical home locator service" that is easy to implement because it only has to point to one place, not to every location which has records about the patient.
When the patient arrives naked and unconscious in the emergency department, assuming someone knows the name/date of birth of the patient, the electronic medical home locator service is queried and once the selection of medical home is known, that one location could be queried to retrieve all of the records.
Finally, just to play out the complete use case to its most absurd, if no one knows the patient identity, then we could suggest the electronic medical home locator service should contain a hash of a fingerprint, so that a biometric - a scan of the patient's finger - could be used to identify the electronic medical home designation and then retrieve the lifetime record summary.
Summarizing
1. In Meaningful Use Phase 1, we implement push transactions by 2011. Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault, Hospitals, and Payers should create electronic medical home repositories capable of receiving push transactions so that copies of inpatient, outpatient and lifetime summaries can be sent there. The transport mechanism used to push data to the medical home could be REST, SOAP, or SMTP, just as the NHIN Direct project has suggested. Ideally electronic medical home providers will issue each patient a Health URL, making it easy for EHRs and health information exchanges to route data to the correct location.
2. When an electronic medical home designation is elected, a copy of the designation and a hash of the patient's fingerprint is sent to a regional or national electronic medical home locator service.
3. When the patient arrives unconscious, the name and date of birth of the patient is used to query the electronic medical home locator service, retrieve the electronic medical home designation and then retrieve the lifetime record summary.
4. If the patient is naked and unconscious, a fingerprint scan could be used to retrieve the electronic medical home designation and their records.
5. All of this is empowered by Stage 1 of Meaningful Use as currently written. All that needs to happen is that providers, payers and vendors need to offer a place to push transactions on behalf of the patient.
Some have suggested that we should abandon the NHIN Connect, NHIN Direct, and Stage 1 push exchanges in favor of an engineering optimal solution of creating one large database of all electronic health records in the cloud.
Sometimes the engineering optimal solution is not the social/policy optimal solution.
The idea of creating a voluntary, opt-in electronic medical home supported by many hosts - payers, providers, vendors etc. is achievable and appealing.
In the US, we are wary of any top down, government mandate. We are suspicious of centralizing anything. Maintaining patient control of healthcare data and letting the market provide multiple hosting options seems like an achievable architecture that builds upon what we have already implemented and the meaningful use regulations already in place.
Here are my thoughts about the trajectory we're on and how it will lead us to supporting the "Unconscious in the ED" use case.
Meaningful Use Stage 1 is about capturing data electronically in EHRs. Getting healthcare data in electronic form is foundational to any data exchanges. By 2011 we should have medication lists, problem lists, allergies, and summaries available from EHRs.
The data exchanges in Stage 1 are simple pushes of data from point A to point B - from provider to public health, from provider to provider, and from provider to pharmacy. There is no master patient index, no record locator service, and no centralized database containing everyone's lifetime health record.
The Stage 1 data exchanges are the right first step. Serving as chair for a health information exchange for 12 years, I can tell you that pushing data from point A to point B builds trust and breaks down political barriers to data sharing. The policy needed to guide push technology is straightforward, since the parties involved in the exchange are limited - the sender and the receiver. Consent can be simple. For a referral, this might be "do you permit me to send your data to a specialist so that your care can be coordinated?"
But how are we going to get to a model that supports the pulling of data by emergency rooms?
There are several engineering approaches.
One is to create a master patient index for a state or region so that the identity of patients seeking care is known. Once we have a master patient index, we can build a record locator service to keep track of every site the patient visits. Then, we can build a consent repository so that the patient can control what is shared. During an emergency department encounter, summaries can be pulled from those sites listed in the record locator service which the patient has agreed to share.
I know that this approach works, because it is what I implemented at the hospitals of CareGroup in 1997 as the focus of my MIT thesis.
However, it does have scalability problems. Given that there are 500,000 doctors and 5000 acute care hospitals, the engineering complexity to pull data from multiple, disparate sites is significant and it requires that all sites support real time queries 24x7x365, maintaining the necessary security and robustness to enable such interchange. That's a tall order.
An alternative, that is simpler from an engineering perspective and achievable with the Stage 1 push technologies looks like this.
What if payers, providers, and private vendors offered something called "the electronic medical home"? The patient needs to pick some hosting option they trust. Just as Stage 1 of meaningful use supports push transactions from provider to provider, the same transactions could be pushed to the electronic medical home designated by the patient. This has the added advantage of providing a means to support the patient engagement provisions of Stage 1 (deliver summaries of ambulatory encounters within 3 business days, deliver inpatient summaries upon request, deliver lifetime health summaries upon request). If every producer of data (lab, pharmacy, hospital, eligible professional etc) pushed a copy of the data they generated to the electronic medical home chosen by the patient, then the patient could become steward of their lifetime medical record hosted by the trusted agent of their choice. Medical home data would be complete and constantly updated by data producers.
Patients could store their electronic medical home designation on a card in their wallet or on a medical alert bracelet. If patients visited the emergency room of a hospital they had registered at previously, the hospital would have a record of the patient's electronic medical home selection since the hospital would be one of the medical home data sources.
Ok, but what if the patient arrives in the Emergency Department, naked and unconscious so there is no electronic medical home designation on their body? I can tell you that in all my years of practicing emergency medicine, I have never treated a naked and unconscious patient, but let's think about the scenario.
There could be a national or a federated regional database which keeps a record of the designated electronic medical home - an "electronic medical home locator service" that is easy to implement because it only has to point to one place, not to every location which has records about the patient.
When the patient arrives naked and unconscious in the emergency department, assuming someone knows the name/date of birth of the patient, the electronic medical home locator service is queried and once the selection of medical home is known, that one location could be queried to retrieve all of the records.
Finally, just to play out the complete use case to its most absurd, if no one knows the patient identity, then we could suggest the electronic medical home locator service should contain a hash of a fingerprint, so that a biometric - a scan of the patient's finger - could be used to identify the electronic medical home designation and then retrieve the lifetime record summary.
Summarizing
1. In Meaningful Use Phase 1, we implement push transactions by 2011. Google Health, Microsoft Healthvault, Hospitals, and Payers should create electronic medical home repositories capable of receiving push transactions so that copies of inpatient, outpatient and lifetime summaries can be sent there. The transport mechanism used to push data to the medical home could be REST, SOAP, or SMTP, just as the NHIN Direct project has suggested. Ideally electronic medical home providers will issue each patient a Health URL, making it easy for EHRs and health information exchanges to route data to the correct location.
2. When an electronic medical home designation is elected, a copy of the designation and a hash of the patient's fingerprint is sent to a regional or national electronic medical home locator service.
3. When the patient arrives unconscious, the name and date of birth of the patient is used to query the electronic medical home locator service, retrieve the electronic medical home designation and then retrieve the lifetime record summary.
4. If the patient is naked and unconscious, a fingerprint scan could be used to retrieve the electronic medical home designation and their records.
5. All of this is empowered by Stage 1 of Meaningful Use as currently written. All that needs to happen is that providers, payers and vendors need to offer a place to push transactions on behalf of the patient.
Some have suggested that we should abandon the NHIN Connect, NHIN Direct, and Stage 1 push exchanges in favor of an engineering optimal solution of creating one large database of all electronic health records in the cloud.
Sometimes the engineering optimal solution is not the social/policy optimal solution.
The idea of creating a voluntary, opt-in electronic medical home supported by many hosts - payers, providers, vendors etc. is achievable and appealing.
In the US, we are wary of any top down, government mandate. We are suspicious of centralizing anything. Maintaining patient control of healthcare data and letting the market provide multiple hosting options seems like an achievable architecture that builds upon what we have already implemented and the meaningful use regulations already in place.
MARKETING APTITUDE QUESTIONS FOR BANK & PSC EXAMINATIONS
1. The Indian Economy will grow as per the estimates given by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at which of the following rates in 2008 ?
(A) 6.7%
(B) 7.5%
(C) 8.5%
(D) 8%
Ans (D)
2. Government has notified the hike in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit for Public Sector Undertakings refineries. The new FDI limit is�
(A) 26%
(B) 49%
(C) 51%
(D) 75%
Ans: (B)
3. As per the report on State of Forest released on February 13, 2008, what is the percentage coverage of forest area in the total geographical area of the country ?(A) 22.20%
(B) 21.30%
(C) 20.60%
(D) 19.90%
Ans: (C)
4. 13th Finance Commission has been constituted under the Chairmanship of�
(A) Y. S. P. Thorat
(B) Vijai L. Kelkar
(C) T. S. Vijayan
(D) Laxmi Narayan
Ans: (C)
5. SEBI is a�
(A) Statutory body
(B) Advisory body
(C) Constitutional body
(D) Non-statutory body
Ans: (A)
6. 15th SAARC Summit is scheduled to be held in July-August 2008. The changed venue of the summit is�
(A) New Delhi
(B) Sri Lanka
(C) Maldives
(D) Bangladesh
Ans: (B)
7. When was the SAARC established ?(A) On December 8, 1984
(B) On January 1, 1984
(C) On December 8, 1985
(D) On January 1, 1985
Ans: (C)
8. What is the present number of member countries of European Economic Community ?
(A) 15
(B) 12
(C) 25
(D) 20
Ans: (B)
9. Which Committee recommended abolition of tax rebates under section 88 ?
(A) Chelliah Committee
(B) Kelkar Committee
(C) Shome Committee
(D) None of the above
Ans: (B)
10. Which of the following countries is not the members of European Union ?
(A) Switzerland
(B) Malta
(C) The Czeck Republic
(D) Poland
Ans: (A)
11. Pradhanmantri Bharat Jodo Pariyojna is related to�
(A) Communication
(B) Social Integration
(C) Linking of Rivers
(D) Development of Highways
Ans: (D)
12. �Sagarmala� is a name associated with�
(A) A drilling vessel
(B) A project of port development
(C) Oil well in Indian Ocean
(D) None of the above
Ans: (B)
13. Tarapore Committee submitted its report on �Full Convertibility on Rupee� in�
(A) Current account
(B) Capital account
(C) Both in current as well as in capital account
(D) Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
Ans: (B)
14. The new President of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) is�
(A) K. C. Raina
(B) V. P. Shetty
(C) Rajiv Chandrashekhar
(D) Som Mittal
Ans: (C)
15. As per Revised Estimates for 2006-07 released by CSO, the growth rate for Indian economy has been estimated to be�
(A) 9.0%
(B) 9.2%
(C) 9.4%
(D) 9.6%
Ans: (D)
16. CENVAT is related to�
(A) Sales Tax
(B) Excise Duty
(C) Custom Duty
(D) Service Tax
Ans: (B)
17. Aam Admi Bima Yojana provides social security to�
(A) All labours in rural areas
(B) All landless labours living below poverty line in rural areas
(C) All labours in urban areas
(D) All labours in both rural as well as urban areas
Ans: (B)
18. According to 2001 census urbanrural population ratio is about�
(A) 35 : 65
(B) 32 : 68
(C) 28 : 72
(D) 25 : 75
Ans: (C)
19. As per the final estimates of Ministry of Agriculture, the rice production for 2006-07 is estimated at�
(A) 80.11 MT
(B) 90.0 MT
(C) 93.4 MT
(D) 101.60 MT
Ans: (C)
20. According to 2001 census the state having highest urban population is�
(A) U.P.
(B) Maharashtra
(C) Tamil Nadu
(D) Kerala
Ans: (B)
21. The growth rate of construction sector for the year 2006-07 has been estimated at the level�
(A) 9.2%
(B) 8.5%
(C) 11.0%
(D) 12.0%
Ans: (D)
22. International Finance Corporation (IFC) has decided to fund an Ultra Mega Power Project in Gujarat. This project belongs to�
(A) Reliance Group
(B) Tata Group
(C) Birla Group
(D) NTPC
Ans: (B)
23. Which states ranks first and last respectively in Education Development Index (EDI) prepared to track the progress of states towards providing universal elementary education ?
(A) Kerala and Orissa respectively
(B) Kerala and Bihar repectively
(C) Andhra Pradesh and Orissa respectively
(D) Karnataka and Bihar respectively
Ans: (B)
24. Targeted power capacity addition for 11th plan period is�
(A) 41110 MW
(B) 66463 MW
(C) 68963 MW
(D) 86283 MW
Ans: (B)
25. During 2006-07 which sector has shown the highest growth rate ?
(A) Service Sector
(B) Manufacturing Sector
(C) Transport and communication
(D) Agriculture Sector
Ans: (C)
26. The Ex-officio Secretary of NDC is�
(A) Secretary of Finance Ministry
(B) General Secretary of Lok Sabha
(C) Secretary of Planning Commission
(D) Vice Chairman of Planning Commission
Ans: (C)
27. 15th SAARC Summit was held in July�August 2008. The venue of the summit was�
(A) New Delhi
(B) Sri Lanka
(C) Maldives
(D) Bangladesh
Ans: (B)
28. In National Mineral Policy (1993) which mineral was allowed for having investment from private sector�
(A) Coal
(B) Iron
(C) Gold
(D) Platinum
Ans: (A)
29. The share of road transport in total transport of the country is�
(A) 20%
(B) 40%
(C) 60%
(D) 80%
Ans: (D)
30. 11th National Conference on e-governance was held on 7�8 February, 2008 at�
(A) Gurgaon (Haryana)
(B) Chandigarh
(C) Mohali (Punjab)
(D) Panchkula (Haryana)
Ans: (D)
31. Which percentage of Central Taxes have been recommended by the 12th Finance Commission to be transferred to States ?
(A) 28.5%
(B) 29.5%
(C) 30.5%
(D) 31.5%
Ans: (C)
32. Which state possesses the maximum percentage of SC population ?
(A) U.P.
(B) M.P.
(C) Kerala
(D) Punjab
Ans: (D)
33. Government has decided to cover all districts of the country in National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP)�
(A) Upto January 1, 2008
(B) Upto March 31, 2008
(C) w.e.f April 1, 2008
(D) w.e.f. April 1, 2009
Ans: (B)
34. What is �NIKKEI� ?
(A) Share Price Index of Tokyo Share Market
(B) Name of Japanese Central Bank
(C) Japanese name of Country�s Planning Commission
(D) Foreign Exchange Market of Japan
Ans: (A)
35. Which statement is correct for Indian Planning Commission ?
(A) It is not defined in Indian Constitution
(B) Members and vice-chairman of it do not have fixed working duration
(C) Members do not require any minimum education
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
36. Which State of the following has adopted VAT (Value Added Tax) w.e.f. January 1, 2007 ?
(A) Tamil Nadu
(B) Uttar Pradesh
(C) Gujarat
(D) Goa
Ans: (A)
37. Service Tax revenue collection for 2007�08 (Budget estimates) was proposed at Rs. 50,200 crore but the revised estimates remained at�
(A) Rs. 50,603 crore
(B) Rs. 52,603 crore
(C) Rs. 64,460 crore
(D) Rs. 64,640 crore
Ans: (A)
38. NABARD was established on the recommendation of�
(A) Public Account Committee
(B) Shivaraman Committee
(C) Narsimham Committee
(D) None of these
Ans: (B)
39. Sampurna Gramin Rojgar Yojana has been launched from�
(A) 1st April, 2001
(B) 25th Sept., 2001
(C) 30th Sept., 2001
(D) No scheme of such title has yet launched
Ans: (B)
40. Which company is providing mobile service with name �Cell one� to the consumers ?
(A) MTNL
(B) BSNL
(C) Reliance Infocom
(D) Bharti Tele
Ans: (B)
41. VAT is imposed�
(A) Directly on consumer
(B) On final stage of production
(C) On first stage of production
(D) On all stages between production and final sale
Ans: (D)
42. The newly elevated person as Joint Chairman�cum�Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL) is�
(A) S. Sridhar
(B) Viswapati Trivedi
(C) Rajiv Chandrashekhar
(D) Venugopal Dhoot
Ans: (B)
43. Kutir Jyoti scheme is associated with�
(A) Promoting cottage industry in villages
(B) Promoting employment among rural unemployed youth
(C) Providing electricity to rural families living below the poverty line
(D) All of these
Ans: (C)
44. Novelis has been acquired and merged with�
(A) Tata Steels
(B) SAIL
(C) HINDALCO
(D) Jindal Steels
Ans: (C)
45. OTCEI is�
(A) Atomic Submarine of China
(B) Economic policy of USA
(C) An Indian Share Market
(D) A defence research organisation
Ans: (C)
46. The New Chairman of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) is�
(A) M. Damodaran
(B) C. B. Bhave
(C) Venugopal Dhoot
(D) Sunil K. Munjal
Ans: (B)
47. Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for 2008�09 as per document of 11th plan stands at Rs. 2,28,725 crore but in budget proposals for 2008�09 it has been raised to�
(A) Rs. 2,23,386 crore
(B) Rs. 2,43,386 crore
(C) Rs. 2,63,386 crore
(D) Rs. 28,456 crore
Ans: (B)
48. The base of Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers is being shifted from 1982 to�
(A) 1995
(B) 1998
(C) 2000
(D) 2001
Ans: (D)
49. In Budget proposals for 2008�09, which of the following gives 24% contribution in revenue collection of union government ?
(A) Income Tax
(B) Excise
(C) Corporation Tax
(D) Non-tax Revenue
Ans: (C)
50. The base year of present Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Urban Non-Manual Employees (CPI�UNME) is�
(A) 1980-81
(B) 1981-81
(C) 1982-83
(D) 1984-85
Ans: (D)
51. CAPART is related with�
(A) Assisting and evaluating rural welfare programmes
(B) Computer hardware
(C) Consultant service of export promotion
(D) Controlling pollution in big industries
Ans: (A)
52. Note issuing deptt. of RBI should always possess the minimum gold stock of worth�
(A) Rs. 85 crore
(B) Rs. 115 crore
(C) Rs. 200 crore
(D) None of these
Ans: (B)
53. Which of the following does not grant any tax rebate ?
(A) National Saving Certificate
(B) Indira Vikas Patra
(C) National Saving Scheme
(D) Public Providend Fund
Ans: (B)
54. Ad hoc Treasury Bill System of meeting budget deficit in India was abolished on�
(A) 31 March, 1997
(B) 31 March, 1996
(C) 1 April, 1992
(D) 1 April, 1995
Ans: (A)
55. SEBI was established in�
(A) 1993
(B) 1992
(C) 1988
(D) 1990
Ans: (C)
56. The working of SEBI includes�
(A) To regulate the dealings of share market
(B) To check the foul dealings in share market
(C) To control the inside trading of shares
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
57. The �Ad hoc Treasury Bill System� of meeting budget deficit in India was replaced by �Ways and Means Advances System� which has come into force on�
(A) March 31, 1997
(B) April 1, 1996
(C) April 1, 1997
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
58. Fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP was 4�0% in 2004�05 which sliped down in 2008�09 (Budget Estimates) to�
(A) 3.2%
(B) 2.8%
(C) 2.5%
(D) 2.1%
Ans: (C)
59. According to the Economic Survey 2007�08 during the period April 3, 2007 and February 6, 2008 Indian rupee appreciated against US dollar by�
(A) 5.6%
(B) 6.8%
(C) 8.9%
(D) 9.3%
Ans: (C)
60. Which statement of the following is true for IMF ?
(A) It is not an agency of UNO
(B) It can grant loan to any country of the world
(C) It can grant loan to state Govt. of a country
(D) It grants loan only to member nations
Ans: (D)
61. For 2006-07, agriculture growth rate has been estimated at�
(A) 3.8%
(B) 5.9%
(C) 0.0%
(D) 6.3%
Ans: (A)
62. Which of the following is public sector organisation ?
(1) FCI Food Corporation of India
(2) FCI Fertilizer Corporation of India
(3) Cotton Corporation of India
(4) Jute Corporation of India
(A) Only 1 and 2
(B) Only 2, 3
(C) Only 3, 4
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
63. Which day has been declared as �Balika Diwas� (Girl Day) by the Ministry of Woman and Children Development ?
(A) April 5, every year
(B) July 9, every year
(C) October 9, every year
(D) December 9, every year
Ans: (D)
64. For RIDF-XIII, allocation in Union Budget 2006-07 was�
(A) Rs. 4500 crore
(B) Rs. 5500 crore
(C) Rs. 10000 crore
(D) Rs. 12000 crore
Ans: (D)
65. The birth rate and death rate for the year 2006 have been estimated as�
(A) 26.2 and 8.1 per thousand respectively
(B) 24.8 and 8.0 per thousand respectively
(C) 23.8 and 7.6 per thousand respectively
(D) 23.5 and 7.5 per thousand respectively
Ans: (D)
66. Central Issue price of foodgrains under TPDS includes price for BPL and APL (below poverty line and above poverty line). What is the difference between the two ?
(A) Price for APL is double of BPL price
(B) Price for BPL is one-third of APL price
(C) Difference of Rs. 500 per Qt.
(D) Difference of Rs. 250 per Qt.
Ans: (A)
67. What growth target government has estimated for the domestic crude production for the 11th Plan (2007�12) ?(A) 42%
(B) 33%
(C) 29%
(D) 26%
Ans: (D)
68. Rural women can avail the benefit of Mahila Samriddhi Yojana if they open their account in�
(A) Rural Post Offices
(B) Commercial Banks
(C) Rural Development Bank
(D) Any of the above
Ans: (A)
69. Agriculture sector registered 6% growth in 2005-06 and it is estimated for year 2007-08 at�
(A) Again 6%
(B) 4.3%
(C) 3.3%
(D) 2.6%
Ans: (D)
70. As per the second advanced estimates of Agricultural Production for the year 2007-08 released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Kharif production has been estimated at�
(A) 110.52 Million Tonnes
(B) 112.24 Million Tonnes
(C) 114.42 Million Tonnes
(D) 115.9 Million Tonnes
Ans: (D)
71. Mistry Committee in its final report recommends full capital account convertibility by�
(A) 2008 end
(B) 2009 end
(C) 2010 end
(D) 2011 end
Ans: (A)
72. Which committee recommended tax on Agriculture Holdings ?
(A) Bhootlingam Committee
(B) Wanchoo Committee
(C) Raj Committee
(D) None of these
Ans: (d)
73. The Present Service Tax rate as proposed in Union Budget 2008-09 is�
(A) 8%
(B) 9%
(C) 10%
(D) 12%
Ans: (D)
74. The cause of deflation is�
(A) Lack of goods and services as compared to money supply
(B) Lack of imports as compared to exports
(C) Lack of money supply as compared to supply of goods and services
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
75. Which of the following is a better measure of economic development ?
(A) Employment
(B) Size of exports
(C) Rural consumption
(D) National Income
Ans: (D)
76. Which bank in India performs duties of Central Bank ?
(A) Central Bank of India
(B) State Bank of India
(C) Reserve Bank of India
(D) Above (A) and (B)
Ans: (C)
77. Out of one Rupee expenditure, how much paise have been allotted for subsidy in 2008-09 budget proposals?
(A) 12 Paise
(B) 10 Paise
(C) 8 Paise
(D) 7 Paise
Ans: (C)
78. �India Brand Equity Fund� was established in�
(A) 1996
(B) 1997
(C) 1995
(D) 1992
Ans: (A)
79. Mixed Economy means�
(A) Co-existence of small and large industries
(B) Promoting both Agriculture and Industries in the economy
(C) Co-existence of public and private sectors
(D) Co-existence of rich and poor
Ans: (C)
80. Ministry of HRD has announced to hike FDI limit in Education to�
(A) 65%
(B) 70%
(C) 75%
(D) 100%
Ans: (D)
81. �Pure Banking, Nothing Else� is a slogan raised by�
(A) ICICI Bank
(B) HDFC Bank
(C) SBI
(D) UTI Bank
Ans: (C)
82. During 2006-07, External debt to GDP ratio in India stood at�
(A) 16.4%
(B) 17.4%
(C) 17.8%
(D) 15.8%
Ans: (A)
83. Indian State having the lowest Infant Mortality Rate is�
(A) Maharashtra
(B) Goa
(C) Gujarat
(D) Kerala
Ans: (D)
84. �Smart Money� is a term used for�
(A) Internet Banking
(B) Credit Card
(C) Cash with Bank
(D) Cash with Public
Ans: (B)
85. Which of the following has the maximum share in GSM Mobile Phone Service Market ?
(A) Vodafone (earlier Hutch)
(B) Airtel
(C) BSNL
(D) Reliance
Ans: (B)
86. The main objective of TRYSEM was�
(A) To train rural youth for self employment
(B) To train urban youth for self employment
(C) Both of the above
(D) None of these
Ans: (A)
87. The establishment of IORARC (Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation) was officially declared on�
(A) March 5, 1996
(B) March 5, 1997
(C) April 1, 1997
(D) August 15, 1947
Ans: (B)
88. Inside Trading is related to�
(A) Share Market
(B) Horse racing
(C) Taxation
(D) Public Expenditure
Ans: (A)
89. The largest source of National Income in India is�
(A) Service Sector
(B) Agriculture
(C) Industrial Sector
(D) Trade Sector
Ans: (A)
90. �Public Sector� means�
(A) Government ownership on commerce and trade
(B) Capitalist ownership on commerce and trade
(C) Private ownership on trade
(D) None of these
Ans: (A)
91. NABARD is�
(A) A bank
(B) A board
(C) A block
(D) A department
Ans: (A)
92. Indian Green Revolution is the most successful in�
(A) Wheat and Potato
(B) Jwar and Oil Seeds
(C) Wheat and Rice
(D) Tea and Coffee
Ans: (C)
93. The period of 10th plan in India was�
(A) 2000-2005
(B) 2001-2006
(C) 2002-2007
(D) 2003-2008
Ans: (C)
94. Economic Planning is in�
(A) Union list
(B) State list
(C) Concurrent list
(D) Not any specified list
Ans: (C)
95. Presently (from April 29, 2003) bank rate in India is�
(A) 7.0%
(B) 6.75%
(C) 6.25%
(D) 6.0%
Ans: (D)
96. Gross domestic savings as a proportion of GDP has been improving. What is the average percentage of gross domestic savings during the 10th plan ?
(A) 26.4%
(B) 31.4%
(C) 34.8%
(D) 35.2%
Ans: (B)
97. 12th Finance Commission has recommended to merge and determine one single interest rate on various outstanding central loans to states having different interest rates. What is this recommended interest rate ?
(A) 7.0%
(B) 7.5%
(C) 8.0%
(D) 8.5%
Ans: (B)
98. MRTP is related to�
(A) Monopoly and trade restrictions
(B) Inflation control
(C) Transport control
(D) Foreign Exchange Regulations
Ans: (A)
99. Interest Rate Policy is a part of�
(A) Fiscal Policy
(B) Industrial Policy
(C) Monetary Policy
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
100. The basis of determining dearness allowance to employees in India is�
(A) National Income
(B) Consumer Price Index
(C) Standard of Living
(D) Per Capita Income
Ans: (B)
(A) 6.7%
(B) 7.5%
(C) 8.5%
(D) 8%
Ans (D)
2. Government has notified the hike in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) limit for Public Sector Undertakings refineries. The new FDI limit is�
(A) 26%
(B) 49%
(C) 51%
(D) 75%
Ans: (B)
3. As per the report on State of Forest released on February 13, 2008, what is the percentage coverage of forest area in the total geographical area of the country ?(A) 22.20%
(B) 21.30%
(C) 20.60%
(D) 19.90%
Ans: (C)
4. 13th Finance Commission has been constituted under the Chairmanship of�
(A) Y. S. P. Thorat
(B) Vijai L. Kelkar
(C) T. S. Vijayan
(D) Laxmi Narayan
Ans: (C)
5. SEBI is a�
(A) Statutory body
(B) Advisory body
(C) Constitutional body
(D) Non-statutory body
Ans: (A)
6. 15th SAARC Summit is scheduled to be held in July-August 2008. The changed venue of the summit is�
(A) New Delhi
(B) Sri Lanka
(C) Maldives
(D) Bangladesh
Ans: (B)
7. When was the SAARC established ?(A) On December 8, 1984
(B) On January 1, 1984
(C) On December 8, 1985
(D) On January 1, 1985
Ans: (C)
8. What is the present number of member countries of European Economic Community ?
(A) 15
(B) 12
(C) 25
(D) 20
Ans: (B)
9. Which Committee recommended abolition of tax rebates under section 88 ?
(A) Chelliah Committee
(B) Kelkar Committee
(C) Shome Committee
(D) None of the above
Ans: (B)
10. Which of the following countries is not the members of European Union ?
(A) Switzerland
(B) Malta
(C) The Czeck Republic
(D) Poland
Ans: (A)
11. Pradhanmantri Bharat Jodo Pariyojna is related to�
(A) Communication
(B) Social Integration
(C) Linking of Rivers
(D) Development of Highways
Ans: (D)
12. �Sagarmala� is a name associated with�
(A) A drilling vessel
(B) A project of port development
(C) Oil well in Indian Ocean
(D) None of the above
Ans: (B)
13. Tarapore Committee submitted its report on �Full Convertibility on Rupee� in�
(A) Current account
(B) Capital account
(C) Both in current as well as in capital account
(D) Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
Ans: (B)
14. The new President of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) is�
(A) K. C. Raina
(B) V. P. Shetty
(C) Rajiv Chandrashekhar
(D) Som Mittal
Ans: (C)
15. As per Revised Estimates for 2006-07 released by CSO, the growth rate for Indian economy has been estimated to be�
(A) 9.0%
(B) 9.2%
(C) 9.4%
(D) 9.6%
Ans: (D)
16. CENVAT is related to�
(A) Sales Tax
(B) Excise Duty
(C) Custom Duty
(D) Service Tax
Ans: (B)
17. Aam Admi Bima Yojana provides social security to�
(A) All labours in rural areas
(B) All landless labours living below poverty line in rural areas
(C) All labours in urban areas
(D) All labours in both rural as well as urban areas
Ans: (B)
18. According to 2001 census urbanrural population ratio is about�
(A) 35 : 65
(B) 32 : 68
(C) 28 : 72
(D) 25 : 75
Ans: (C)
19. As per the final estimates of Ministry of Agriculture, the rice production for 2006-07 is estimated at�
(A) 80.11 MT
(B) 90.0 MT
(C) 93.4 MT
(D) 101.60 MT
Ans: (C)
20. According to 2001 census the state having highest urban population is�
(A) U.P.
(B) Maharashtra
(C) Tamil Nadu
(D) Kerala
Ans: (B)
21. The growth rate of construction sector for the year 2006-07 has been estimated at the level�
(A) 9.2%
(B) 8.5%
(C) 11.0%
(D) 12.0%
Ans: (D)
22. International Finance Corporation (IFC) has decided to fund an Ultra Mega Power Project in Gujarat. This project belongs to�
(A) Reliance Group
(B) Tata Group
(C) Birla Group
(D) NTPC
Ans: (B)
23. Which states ranks first and last respectively in Education Development Index (EDI) prepared to track the progress of states towards providing universal elementary education ?
(A) Kerala and Orissa respectively
(B) Kerala and Bihar repectively
(C) Andhra Pradesh and Orissa respectively
(D) Karnataka and Bihar respectively
Ans: (B)
24. Targeted power capacity addition for 11th plan period is�
(A) 41110 MW
(B) 66463 MW
(C) 68963 MW
(D) 86283 MW
Ans: (B)
25. During 2006-07 which sector has shown the highest growth rate ?
(A) Service Sector
(B) Manufacturing Sector
(C) Transport and communication
(D) Agriculture Sector
Ans: (C)
26. The Ex-officio Secretary of NDC is�
(A) Secretary of Finance Ministry
(B) General Secretary of Lok Sabha
(C) Secretary of Planning Commission
(D) Vice Chairman of Planning Commission
Ans: (C)
27. 15th SAARC Summit was held in July�August 2008. The venue of the summit was�
(A) New Delhi
(B) Sri Lanka
(C) Maldives
(D) Bangladesh
Ans: (B)
28. In National Mineral Policy (1993) which mineral was allowed for having investment from private sector�
(A) Coal
(B) Iron
(C) Gold
(D) Platinum
Ans: (A)
29. The share of road transport in total transport of the country is�
(A) 20%
(B) 40%
(C) 60%
(D) 80%
Ans: (D)
30. 11th National Conference on e-governance was held on 7�8 February, 2008 at�
(A) Gurgaon (Haryana)
(B) Chandigarh
(C) Mohali (Punjab)
(D) Panchkula (Haryana)
Ans: (D)
31. Which percentage of Central Taxes have been recommended by the 12th Finance Commission to be transferred to States ?
(A) 28.5%
(B) 29.5%
(C) 30.5%
(D) 31.5%
Ans: (C)
32. Which state possesses the maximum percentage of SC population ?
(A) U.P.
(B) M.P.
(C) Kerala
(D) Punjab
Ans: (D)
33. Government has decided to cover all districts of the country in National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP)�
(A) Upto January 1, 2008
(B) Upto March 31, 2008
(C) w.e.f April 1, 2008
(D) w.e.f. April 1, 2009
Ans: (B)
34. What is �NIKKEI� ?
(A) Share Price Index of Tokyo Share Market
(B) Name of Japanese Central Bank
(C) Japanese name of Country�s Planning Commission
(D) Foreign Exchange Market of Japan
Ans: (A)
35. Which statement is correct for Indian Planning Commission ?
(A) It is not defined in Indian Constitution
(B) Members and vice-chairman of it do not have fixed working duration
(C) Members do not require any minimum education
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
36. Which State of the following has adopted VAT (Value Added Tax) w.e.f. January 1, 2007 ?
(A) Tamil Nadu
(B) Uttar Pradesh
(C) Gujarat
(D) Goa
Ans: (A)
37. Service Tax revenue collection for 2007�08 (Budget estimates) was proposed at Rs. 50,200 crore but the revised estimates remained at�
(A) Rs. 50,603 crore
(B) Rs. 52,603 crore
(C) Rs. 64,460 crore
(D) Rs. 64,640 crore
Ans: (A)
38. NABARD was established on the recommendation of�
(A) Public Account Committee
(B) Shivaraman Committee
(C) Narsimham Committee
(D) None of these
Ans: (B)
39. Sampurna Gramin Rojgar Yojana has been launched from�
(A) 1st April, 2001
(B) 25th Sept., 2001
(C) 30th Sept., 2001
(D) No scheme of such title has yet launched
Ans: (B)
40. Which company is providing mobile service with name �Cell one� to the consumers ?
(A) MTNL
(B) BSNL
(C) Reliance Infocom
(D) Bharti Tele
Ans: (B)
41. VAT is imposed�
(A) Directly on consumer
(B) On final stage of production
(C) On first stage of production
(D) On all stages between production and final sale
Ans: (D)
42. The newly elevated person as Joint Chairman�cum�Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL) is�
(A) S. Sridhar
(B) Viswapati Trivedi
(C) Rajiv Chandrashekhar
(D) Venugopal Dhoot
Ans: (B)
43. Kutir Jyoti scheme is associated with�
(A) Promoting cottage industry in villages
(B) Promoting employment among rural unemployed youth
(C) Providing electricity to rural families living below the poverty line
(D) All of these
Ans: (C)
44. Novelis has been acquired and merged with�
(A) Tata Steels
(B) SAIL
(C) HINDALCO
(D) Jindal Steels
Ans: (C)
45. OTCEI is�
(A) Atomic Submarine of China
(B) Economic policy of USA
(C) An Indian Share Market
(D) A defence research organisation
Ans: (C)
46. The New Chairman of SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) is�
(A) M. Damodaran
(B) C. B. Bhave
(C) Venugopal Dhoot
(D) Sunil K. Munjal
Ans: (B)
47. Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for 2008�09 as per document of 11th plan stands at Rs. 2,28,725 crore but in budget proposals for 2008�09 it has been raised to�
(A) Rs. 2,23,386 crore
(B) Rs. 2,43,386 crore
(C) Rs. 2,63,386 crore
(D) Rs. 28,456 crore
Ans: (B)
48. The base of Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers is being shifted from 1982 to�
(A) 1995
(B) 1998
(C) 2000
(D) 2001
Ans: (D)
49. In Budget proposals for 2008�09, which of the following gives 24% contribution in revenue collection of union government ?
(A) Income Tax
(B) Excise
(C) Corporation Tax
(D) Non-tax Revenue
Ans: (C)
50. The base year of present Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Urban Non-Manual Employees (CPI�UNME) is�
(A) 1980-81
(B) 1981-81
(C) 1982-83
(D) 1984-85
Ans: (D)
51. CAPART is related with�
(A) Assisting and evaluating rural welfare programmes
(B) Computer hardware
(C) Consultant service of export promotion
(D) Controlling pollution in big industries
Ans: (A)
52. Note issuing deptt. of RBI should always possess the minimum gold stock of worth�
(A) Rs. 85 crore
(B) Rs. 115 crore
(C) Rs. 200 crore
(D) None of these
Ans: (B)
53. Which of the following does not grant any tax rebate ?
(A) National Saving Certificate
(B) Indira Vikas Patra
(C) National Saving Scheme
(D) Public Providend Fund
Ans: (B)
54. Ad hoc Treasury Bill System of meeting budget deficit in India was abolished on�
(A) 31 March, 1997
(B) 31 March, 1996
(C) 1 April, 1992
(D) 1 April, 1995
Ans: (A)
55. SEBI was established in�
(A) 1993
(B) 1992
(C) 1988
(D) 1990
Ans: (C)
56. The working of SEBI includes�
(A) To regulate the dealings of share market
(B) To check the foul dealings in share market
(C) To control the inside trading of shares
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
57. The �Ad hoc Treasury Bill System� of meeting budget deficit in India was replaced by �Ways and Means Advances System� which has come into force on�
(A) March 31, 1997
(B) April 1, 1996
(C) April 1, 1997
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
58. Fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP was 4�0% in 2004�05 which sliped down in 2008�09 (Budget Estimates) to�
(A) 3.2%
(B) 2.8%
(C) 2.5%
(D) 2.1%
Ans: (C)
59. According to the Economic Survey 2007�08 during the period April 3, 2007 and February 6, 2008 Indian rupee appreciated against US dollar by�
(A) 5.6%
(B) 6.8%
(C) 8.9%
(D) 9.3%
Ans: (C)
60. Which statement of the following is true for IMF ?
(A) It is not an agency of UNO
(B) It can grant loan to any country of the world
(C) It can grant loan to state Govt. of a country
(D) It grants loan only to member nations
Ans: (D)
61. For 2006-07, agriculture growth rate has been estimated at�
(A) 3.8%
(B) 5.9%
(C) 0.0%
(D) 6.3%
Ans: (A)
62. Which of the following is public sector organisation ?
(1) FCI Food Corporation of India
(2) FCI Fertilizer Corporation of India
(3) Cotton Corporation of India
(4) Jute Corporation of India
(A) Only 1 and 2
(B) Only 2, 3
(C) Only 3, 4
(D) All of these
Ans: (D)
63. Which day has been declared as �Balika Diwas� (Girl Day) by the Ministry of Woman and Children Development ?
(A) April 5, every year
(B) July 9, every year
(C) October 9, every year
(D) December 9, every year
Ans: (D)
64. For RIDF-XIII, allocation in Union Budget 2006-07 was�
(A) Rs. 4500 crore
(B) Rs. 5500 crore
(C) Rs. 10000 crore
(D) Rs. 12000 crore
Ans: (D)
65. The birth rate and death rate for the year 2006 have been estimated as�
(A) 26.2 and 8.1 per thousand respectively
(B) 24.8 and 8.0 per thousand respectively
(C) 23.8 and 7.6 per thousand respectively
(D) 23.5 and 7.5 per thousand respectively
Ans: (D)
66. Central Issue price of foodgrains under TPDS includes price for BPL and APL (below poverty line and above poverty line). What is the difference between the two ?
(A) Price for APL is double of BPL price
(B) Price for BPL is one-third of APL price
(C) Difference of Rs. 500 per Qt.
(D) Difference of Rs. 250 per Qt.
Ans: (A)
67. What growth target government has estimated for the domestic crude production for the 11th Plan (2007�12) ?(A) 42%
(B) 33%
(C) 29%
(D) 26%
Ans: (D)
68. Rural women can avail the benefit of Mahila Samriddhi Yojana if they open their account in�
(A) Rural Post Offices
(B) Commercial Banks
(C) Rural Development Bank
(D) Any of the above
Ans: (A)
69. Agriculture sector registered 6% growth in 2005-06 and it is estimated for year 2007-08 at�
(A) Again 6%
(B) 4.3%
(C) 3.3%
(D) 2.6%
Ans: (D)
70. As per the second advanced estimates of Agricultural Production for the year 2007-08 released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Kharif production has been estimated at�
(A) 110.52 Million Tonnes
(B) 112.24 Million Tonnes
(C) 114.42 Million Tonnes
(D) 115.9 Million Tonnes
Ans: (D)
71. Mistry Committee in its final report recommends full capital account convertibility by�
(A) 2008 end
(B) 2009 end
(C) 2010 end
(D) 2011 end
Ans: (A)
72. Which committee recommended tax on Agriculture Holdings ?
(A) Bhootlingam Committee
(B) Wanchoo Committee
(C) Raj Committee
(D) None of these
Ans: (d)
73. The Present Service Tax rate as proposed in Union Budget 2008-09 is�
(A) 8%
(B) 9%
(C) 10%
(D) 12%
Ans: (D)
74. The cause of deflation is�
(A) Lack of goods and services as compared to money supply
(B) Lack of imports as compared to exports
(C) Lack of money supply as compared to supply of goods and services
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
75. Which of the following is a better measure of economic development ?
(A) Employment
(B) Size of exports
(C) Rural consumption
(D) National Income
Ans: (D)
76. Which bank in India performs duties of Central Bank ?
(A) Central Bank of India
(B) State Bank of India
(C) Reserve Bank of India
(D) Above (A) and (B)
Ans: (C)
77. Out of one Rupee expenditure, how much paise have been allotted for subsidy in 2008-09 budget proposals?
(A) 12 Paise
(B) 10 Paise
(C) 8 Paise
(D) 7 Paise
Ans: (C)
78. �India Brand Equity Fund� was established in�
(A) 1996
(B) 1997
(C) 1995
(D) 1992
Ans: (A)
79. Mixed Economy means�
(A) Co-existence of small and large industries
(B) Promoting both Agriculture and Industries in the economy
(C) Co-existence of public and private sectors
(D) Co-existence of rich and poor
Ans: (C)
80. Ministry of HRD has announced to hike FDI limit in Education to�
(A) 65%
(B) 70%
(C) 75%
(D) 100%
Ans: (D)
81. �Pure Banking, Nothing Else� is a slogan raised by�
(A) ICICI Bank
(B) HDFC Bank
(C) SBI
(D) UTI Bank
Ans: (C)
82. During 2006-07, External debt to GDP ratio in India stood at�
(A) 16.4%
(B) 17.4%
(C) 17.8%
(D) 15.8%
Ans: (A)
83. Indian State having the lowest Infant Mortality Rate is�
(A) Maharashtra
(B) Goa
(C) Gujarat
(D) Kerala
Ans: (D)
84. �Smart Money� is a term used for�
(A) Internet Banking
(B) Credit Card
(C) Cash with Bank
(D) Cash with Public
Ans: (B)
85. Which of the following has the maximum share in GSM Mobile Phone Service Market ?
(A) Vodafone (earlier Hutch)
(B) Airtel
(C) BSNL
(D) Reliance
Ans: (B)
86. The main objective of TRYSEM was�
(A) To train rural youth for self employment
(B) To train urban youth for self employment
(C) Both of the above
(D) None of these
Ans: (A)
87. The establishment of IORARC (Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation) was officially declared on�
(A) March 5, 1996
(B) March 5, 1997
(C) April 1, 1997
(D) August 15, 1947
Ans: (B)
88. Inside Trading is related to�
(A) Share Market
(B) Horse racing
(C) Taxation
(D) Public Expenditure
Ans: (A)
89. The largest source of National Income in India is�
(A) Service Sector
(B) Agriculture
(C) Industrial Sector
(D) Trade Sector
Ans: (A)
90. �Public Sector� means�
(A) Government ownership on commerce and trade
(B) Capitalist ownership on commerce and trade
(C) Private ownership on trade
(D) None of these
Ans: (A)
91. NABARD is�
(A) A bank
(B) A board
(C) A block
(D) A department
Ans: (A)
92. Indian Green Revolution is the most successful in�
(A) Wheat and Potato
(B) Jwar and Oil Seeds
(C) Wheat and Rice
(D) Tea and Coffee
Ans: (C)
93. The period of 10th plan in India was�
(A) 2000-2005
(B) 2001-2006
(C) 2002-2007
(D) 2003-2008
Ans: (C)
94. Economic Planning is in�
(A) Union list
(B) State list
(C) Concurrent list
(D) Not any specified list
Ans: (C)
95. Presently (from April 29, 2003) bank rate in India is�
(A) 7.0%
(B) 6.75%
(C) 6.25%
(D) 6.0%
Ans: (D)
96. Gross domestic savings as a proportion of GDP has been improving. What is the average percentage of gross domestic savings during the 10th plan ?
(A) 26.4%
(B) 31.4%
(C) 34.8%
(D) 35.2%
Ans: (B)
97. 12th Finance Commission has recommended to merge and determine one single interest rate on various outstanding central loans to states having different interest rates. What is this recommended interest rate ?
(A) 7.0%
(B) 7.5%
(C) 8.0%
(D) 8.5%
Ans: (B)
98. MRTP is related to�
(A) Monopoly and trade restrictions
(B) Inflation control
(C) Transport control
(D) Foreign Exchange Regulations
Ans: (A)
99. Interest Rate Policy is a part of�
(A) Fiscal Policy
(B) Industrial Policy
(C) Monetary Policy
(D) None of these
Ans: (C)
100. The basis of determining dearness allowance to employees in India is�
(A) National Income
(B) Consumer Price Index
(C) Standard of Living
(D) Per Capita Income
Ans: (B)
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Medical transcription: Steps for easy transition to outsourced services
The role of medical transcription in both the operational and commercial aspects of healthcare is undeniable. Outsourcing medical transcription has been found to be an easy, economical, efficient and effective to the process of medical records creation. However the process of choosing the right medical transcription service provider needs a certain process so that it can result in a fruitful and long-term association.
The steps leading to successful outsourcing of medical transcription are:
Defining the purpose of outsourcing medical transcription: This part of the outsourcing process is very important and often overlooked. Overlooking this step in the process of outsourcing can result in:
- Unrealistic expectations: Outsourcing medical transcription can help the healthcare facility in many aspects. But focusing only on factors like reduced cost and ignoring quality can result in outsourcing expectations not being met.
- Inadequate customization: Healthcare professionals of different specialties may have specific requirements. These may not be included while customizing services if the purpose of outsourcing is not clearly defined
- Loss of productivity: Not defining the purpose of outsourcing medical transcription can result in certain tasks being overlooked and resulting in loss of productivity
Consulting the people involved in or affected by outsourcing medical transcription: Outsourcing medical transcription affects personnel of several departments of the healthcare facility. It is important to involve all the people in the process of outsourcing to ensure success. It is important to not only consult the healthcare professionals and support staff, but is also vital to include the inputs of the Information technology, administrative, management and finance departments to gain maximum from outsourcing medical transcription
Defining the desired outcome from outsourcing medical transcription:
- Reducing cost of medical transcription
- Accuracy levels
- Desired turnaround time
- Formals/templates/fonts
- Document delivery modes
- HIPAA/HITECH compliant transcription
- Adoption of EMR/EHR
Designating key people for implementation: Transition for outsourced medical transcription services can require some adjustments. To ensure smooth transition it is important to designate key people who can coordinate with the medical transcription service provider staff to ensure seamless transition.
Starting the process of outsourcing: To actually start the process of outsourcing medical transcription it is important to undertake the following steps:
- Technology adjustment
- Familiarizing healthcare professionals and support staff with uploading dictation and downloading finished transcripts
- Establishing open channels of communication with the medical transcription service provider.
Outsourcing medical transcription is an important decision and following the due process can result in satisfactory outcome for all the parties concerned.
TransDyne is a leading provider of outsourced medical transcription services, having served healthcare facilities of all types. TransDyne understands the needs of the healthcare facilities and healthcare professionals and provides complete solutions to the varied needs of healthcare professionals and healthcare facilities.
TransDyne offers medical transcription at reasonable prices, done by expert medical transcriptionists with a very quick turnaround time executed through secure HIPAA and HITECH compliant channels, with very high levels of accuracy and all this with technology that is advanced but easy to use.
Outsourcing medical transcription to TransDyne offers additional advantages like:
- Volume flexibility
- Medical transcriptionists trained in specialties
- Customized reports/formats/templates
- Facility to integrate with EMR/EHR
- Option to retain flexible modes of dictation
- Remote printing and faxing options
To avail outsourced medical transcription services from TransDyne, click here
