ICSA Labs and the Medical Transcription Industry Association reportedly announced the formation of a consortium to devise common standards and practices for creating and sharing digitized transcriptions of physician-dictated notes.

 

The notes dictated by doctors give all the details regarding a patient’s care and treatment and forms the basis for electronic medical records. But the conversion of these transcriptions into a secure, digitized format for electronic sharing among doctors is possible only if there is a single agreed-upon format for exchanging the information.

 

The Medical Transcription Service Consortium or MTSC will develop a common framework for the digitization of transcribed dictated records such as interoperability standards for the seamless and secure data exchange among health care providers, said MTSC sources.

 

According to estimates made by the MTIA, member companies create and electronically archive more than 2.4 billion transcribed medical records annually and it involves over 70 percent of all physicians in the United States.

 

Besides ICSA Labs and the MTIA the other charter members of the consortium include Verizon (News - Alert) and medical transcription companies like MD-IT, MedQuist, MxSecure, Sten-Tel and Webmedx.

 

“Interoperability, privacy and security are challenges that hospitals, physicians and clinics face when trying to exchange records electronically,” George Japak, managing director, ICSA Labs, said in statement. “The goal of the consortium is to help advance the health care industry through the digital exchange of physician-dictated notes in a common format so that information technology becomes an enabler for better patient care and greater efficiency among health care providers.”

 

MTSC also said that Verizon Business has been selected to develop the new IT platform for the secure carrying of digitized transcribed notes of physicians for consortium members. The highly secure deployment will enable objective testing and certification for privacy, security and interoperability.

 

“Medical transcription is a critical part of the U.S. health care industry, and the creation of the consortium will help the industry increase the electronic exchange of patient data through a common set of standards,” Peter Preziosi, the MTIA’s CEO said in a statement.

 

Preziosi said that by enabling the sector to move toward fast adoption of standards-compliant health records, the health care industry will be able to accelerate the use of electronic health records and ensure greater access to critical patient information among all health care providers.