Solutions for Medical Report Errors

Future of Medical Transcription

• 30,000 jobs open right now which demand the MT skill set; not enough grads to meet current demands. (MTIA/AHDI).
• Employment of medical transcriptionists is expected to grow faster than average through the year 2016. (Department of Labor)
• A need for 5.3 million healthcare workers to fill job openings created by departures and new positions. (Department of Labor)
  

Credentialing the Medical Transcription Workforce

• Only graduates from AHDI-approved schools + RMT credential qualify for National Registered Apprenticeship Program. (Department of Labor)
• Certified medical transcriptionists earn as much as 1/3 more
  than their noncertified counterparts. (Advance for HIM)
• Low margin of error (2%) in this industry for risk management.
  

Military Spouse Initiative

• Targets 750,000 military spouses with education and lifetime
  career, both of which move with them. (AHDI with DoD and DoL Military
  Spouse Initiative)
• Pilot military spouse education program successful in 18 military installations (8 states); need for more funds to educate many spouses being turned away.
• Army of nearly 100 AHDI representatives now linking POCs via career fairs, forums, listservs, military staff and spouse briefings, shore to shore.
• $3000 per year per student x2 years (realistic time frame to achieve excellent education) to include textbooks, references, supplies,
  certified instructors, ongoing job placement.
  

Medical Errors/Need for Quality

• 100,000 people die annually from medical errors, roughly the equivalent of a city the size of Green Bay, Wisconsin, or equivalent to an almost full DC-10 or 747 jumbo jet crashing into the sea every single day of the year! (United Press International)
• 8th leading cause of death in the US, documented annually since year 2000. (NCBI, PubMed, multisource)
• Medical mistakes strain patients' bank accounts -- $37.6 billion annually. (United Press International)
• 1 in 15 hospitalized children are the victims of mix-ups, overdoses, and harmful reactions to drugs prescribed during hospital stays. This translates to 540,000 kids afflicted every year. (Personal Injury Lawyer Blog)
• Hospitals currently average between 10 and 30 mistakes for every 100 procedures. (United Press International)
• Medicare patients who experienced a patient-safety incident had a 1:5 chance of dying as a result of the incident during 2004 to 2006. (HealthGrades study)
  

Electronic Health Record

• About 10 percent of physicians use an EMR, and more than half are primary care physicians. (The Doctors Company)
• A review of 363 malpractice claims revealed that system errors contributed to 30% of the claims; 32% of these system errors were medication-related errors, 27 % were communication errors, and 13% were medical record errors. (The Doctors Company)
  

Apprenticeship Funding Needs

• Apprentices start at 50% of the wages an employer pays an experienced MT.
• 2-year apprenticeships available in acute care, 2000 hours OTJ training.
• Propose potentially $4000 per year per new hire for MT service owners who hire grads, and for $10,000 investment, government can provide lifetime career = biggest bang for taxpayer dollars.
  

I am a sixty-three-year old breast cancer survivor, It has been more than six years since my episode with the disease. Last fall, I had follow-up scan and was informed that the cancer had metastasized to my lung. As a result, I would need additional tests and biopsies. Naturally, I was in shock from the news. After two months of multiple CT scans and painful procedures, doctors reported that the “nodule” had disappeared and concluded that the condition was simply an infection.

Today, me and my husband are trying to recover emotionally and financially, since many of the unnecessary tests were not reimbursed by my health plan -- it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't catch 22.

Where does the fault lie in all this? If my initital study had been read by a lung diagnostic specialist, instead of the general radiologist who looked at it, I think there would have been an increased likelihood of an accurate diagnosis the first time. We just assume that diagnostic results are definitive -- but it is really a question of interpretation, skill and experience.

http://www.yourmisdiagnosis.com/