Medical transcription can be an arduous and challenging task, as it’s all about speed and accuracy. The process functions at the periphery of the healthcare industry, converting the dictations of healthcare professionals into well-formatted text documents, and plays a vital role in creating the patient’s medical history. This medical history is used for reference by healthcare providers, medical practices, insurance companies, and lays a foundation for future patient visits. Therefore, it is important to ensure accurate and reliable transcription of your dictated notes. Relying on the right medical transcription services is an ideal option here as it helps medical practices, hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare entities to obtain accurate and affordable clinical documentation solutions in the shortest amount of time. Along with accuracy, speed or time efficiency is also a factor in the medical transcription process, because transcripts are usually needed as soon as possible. Real-time transcription solutions are available, that are an immense help for healthcare providers. When the transcription is done in a timely and efficient way, the healthcare team can work with the latest updated patient health information. This is vital to ensure appropriate patient care. Transcriptionists need to be comfortable working to quick turnaround times; at the same time, it's their responsibility to transcribe physicians’ dictations accurately and efficiently. into accurate reports that go into a patient's medical record. To improve their medical transcription skills, speed, and efficiency, medical transcriptionists follow a few useful tips and tricks. 1. Stay Updated: To stay on top of the game, transcriptionists maintain updated copies of drug/pharmacology handbooks, medical reference books, and medical transcription stylebooks. 2. Ensure they have clear audio recordings to work with: An unclear audio file will impact both the length of time required for medical transcription, and the quality of the final document. Therefore, as part of planning for transcription, transcriptionists must make sure they have a clear and high-standard audio recording and try to minimize background noise where possible. 3. Ask for help: Sometimes, medical abbreviations and symbols are not always consistent among doctors or hospital staff. In such confused situations, medical transcriptionists may seek help from medical transcription graduates as they know how important it is to spell out abbreviations to minimize or avoid misinterpretation or error. 4. Get the right equipment: Transcriptionists need to be familiar with the different types of analog and digital transcription devices, because getting the right equipment can save time and reduce pain and frustration along the way. They use a foot pedal, as it will allow replay of the recordings, and allow them to control the speed, volume, and rewind/forward functions with the foot – keeping the hands free for typing. Professional transcriptionists also make use of transcription software that can be operated using keyboard shortcuts or a foot pedal and has features such as an automatic backstep - the recording rewinds slightly whenever they stop playing it – because it can save a significant amount of time. 5. Practice Typing: Practice makes a man perfect! This is true for medical transcription too. Medical transcription is all about typing and speed. Transcriptionist’s practice typing to improve their typing skills, and then the speed will increase and as a result, the transcription speed will also increase – which is one of the most obvious yet most effective methods of delivering faster transcriptions. 6. Take breaks: Though faster transcription is very much appreciated; transcriptionists also understand the value of taking regular breaks in between. 7. Ensure a comfortable and quiet environment: Listening to an audio and typing it accurately requires a lot of focus and concentration. Therefore, transcriptionists prefer to work in a quiet and comfortable environment – with no distracting noises around - where they can pay full attention to the audio. They also pay attention to ergonomics, making sure that they can sit back and transcribe with ease. All these tips and tricks help professional transcriptionists gain an edge over the competition. Accurate medical transcripts contain important medical data of patients for future reference, which doctors go through to review patient evaluations and decide which treatment is best suitable. Even a minor error in the transcript or a misspelling of medicine or dosage can cause major health issues, or even lead to death. To ensure patient safety and better healthcare service, doctors’ dictations should be accurately transcribed into well-documented reports. To do that, physicians can partner with a reliable medical transcription company that can transcribe audio files with utmost accuracy at reasonable pricing. A reliable transcription firm will make sure that their transcriptionists are well-trained, and work with the best equipment in a comfortable and ergonomic work environment.