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Conference Preview: Going the Distance at MTIA 2009
By Dale Kivi, MBA

Are your transcription efforts prepared to “go the distance” in this uncertain economy? If so, chances are you’re already planning to attend the Medical Transcription Industry Association’s (MTIA) 20th annual conference that kicks off on April 22. 

This year’s event is being held in Louisville, Ky., just around the corner from Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby—a fitting location for transcription service and technology vendors jockeying for position to win new business in today’s fast-moving marketplace.

Highlights of this year’s conference include two historic standard-setting industry summits and the unveiling of the latest dictation/transcription technology breakthroughs that will give industry insiders the competitive edge to outdistance the competition.

Speech Recognition Summit
A Speech Recognition Reality Summit, scheduled for April 24, will critically evaluate the full documentation process cost, quality, and turnaround time trends and workforce impact derived from an industrywide speech recognition technology survey conducted in partnership with the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), the AHIMA, the American Medical Association, and others. The summit goals are to hammer out a trends and best practices white paper to assist health information documentation technology and service provider stakeholders to make better-educated purchase, adoption, and implementation decisions for speech recognition technology based on reality instead of sales hype.

Transcription Quality Summit
The Quality Assurance Summit slated for April 25 will bring leaders from both MTIA and the AHDI together, along with other quality assurance process management experts, to evaluate the newly recommended best practices for measuring and managing accuracy and quality in health data documentation. The summit will take a facilitated look at the associations’ current draft white paper, “Metrics for Measuring Quality in Medical Transcription”; address the proposed metrics, definitions, and recommendations; and seek input from attendees on suggested inclusions/revisions to the standard. Summit input will put the final touches on this three-year effort, with the anticipated final release of the white paper shortly thereafter.

Transcription Technology Solutions
Exhibitors at the MTIA conference consistently unveil dictation and transcription technology breakthroughs driven by emerging market demands, and this year promises to continue that tradition with multiple vendors launching metrics-driven applications in response to recently announced cost, quality, and turnaround time industry measurement standards. As service vendors and direct healthcare providers are forced to sharpen their pencils to either justify proposed technology expenses or compare and contrast competing offers, MTIA technology vendors have responded with improved process visibility and measurement tools along with, in many cases, easier to understand total solution pricing models that deliver lower overall cost of ownership.

For more information, visit www.mtia.com/conference.cfm.

— Dale Kivi, MBA, is director of business development for FutureNet Technologies Corporation and has served on the Medical Transcription Industry Association Billing Methods Principles workgroup, as well as the steering committee for the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity Quality Assessment Special Interest Group.