Thu Aug 26, 2004 4:47 pm   Reply with quote      

Confusion in medical notes outsourced to India

A patient’s ‘phlebitis’ (vein inflammation) was typed out as ‘flea bite his leg’

The outsourcing of medical notes to Indian call centres to save money and speed up work at the National Health Service in Britain is leading to cases of confusion, a London daily claimed today.

While some ‘‘lost in translation’’ mistakes are hilarious, trained medical secretaries warn that the consequences could be serious if drug quantities are wrongly heard, the Daily Telegraph reported.

A drug for stomach ulcers called lansoprazole was transcribed as the much more familiar holiday destination of Lanzarote. Information about a patient’s ‘‘phlebitis’’ (vein inflammation) left leg was typed out as ‘‘flea bite his left leg.’’ A ‘‘below knee amputation’’ was transcribed as ‘‘baloney amputation’’ and ‘‘eustachian tube (in the ear) malfunction’’ was given as ‘‘euston station tube malfunction.’’

Eight London hospitals are using or negotiating to use the services of omni-medical which employs a pool of secretaries in India to transcribe letters from tapes dictated by consultants. It is estimated that about 7,000 letters a month, often between consultants and GPS, are dealt with in this way. The association of medical secretaries has been keeping a log of some of the most glaring mistakes.

‘‘Some of these are funny and we cannot say they have caused problems yet but there are concerns about drug quantities being misheard, eg 15mg for 50mg,’’ said Michael Fiennes, of the Association of Medical Secretaries. ‘‘I have no doubt the secretaries in India type good letters but they are not trained medical secretaries familiar with medical terms,’’ the daily quoted him as saying.

The report quoted Gorav Datta, Omnimedical’s marketing director, saying it was only one of several companies providing transcribing services and the quality of its work was superior to that provided by temporary staffs employed in the NHS. ‘‘All the letters are signed and checked by doctors before they are sent to GPS. Some are checked by the medical secretaries,’’ Datta said.

Thu Aug 26, 2004 6:33 pm   Reply with quote      

Yeah this item is running rampant around the net!

Fri Aug 27, 2004 12:55 am   Reply with quote      

I wonder what the quality of service is if it's provided by a company in US or UK. I often hear people complaining about services provided by companies in India, but they often fail to mention what services are provided in US, UK, Australia and Canada, so I don't feel that fair comparison is made.