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Why Do We Transcribe?
In December 2013, the Accessibility for Manitobans Act (AMA) was signed into law and stood as proactive legislation to address the barriers affecting persons with disabilities and many other citizens. By confronting these barriers and making active measures to remove them, the promotion of inclusivity and acceptance is furthered and the citizen experience is improved.
How that relates to our company
The Accessibility for Manitobans Act includes an “accessibility standard for customer service” , which states that by addressing gaps in training and communication, a more respectful and inclusive working economy is able to thrive in all Manitoba organizations. To meet this customer service standard, employers must (incomplete list): accommodate and assist the communication needs of customers, to notify whether or not accessible features and services are available for those customers, and to make public events accessible (particularly in large sector organizations) by allowing assistive services and devices.
Our company can help bridge that gap in customer accessibility by providing captioning to videos and visual imagery that might not be accessible otherwise. Especially during presentations, meetings, or other live events, live closed-captioning provides an accessible form of communication between the presenter and attendees that are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or has English as a second language. Additionally, the Designated Public Sector Bodies Regulation of the AMA states that all public sector bodies must adhere to these requirements in the Act. These include, but are not limited to: any school divisions under the Public Schools Act, any universities or colleges under the Advanced Education Administration Act, provincial corporations (e.g. Manitoba Public Insurance, Liquor and Lotteries Corporation, etc., the Workers Compensation Board, city municipalities surrounding Winnipeg, and related regional health authorities.
In regards to regional health authorities, when compared to the use of speech recognition software to dictate medical information, transcriptionists show a decreased error rate in the processing of clinical information. Zhou et al, (2018) observed an error rate of more than 7% in speech recognition-generated data, which demonstrated the importance of in-person transcription service use, and manual transcriptionist editing/review.
Additionally, current research analyzes the quality-assurance work conducted by transcriptionists in the production of medical records. Johansen et al, (2015) denotes in their quantitative data, that transcriptionists were able to identify corrections in dictated medical documentation, and that, as the development of Electronic Patient Records continues, transcriptionists will be vital in its quality-assurance.
How that relates to our company
With experienced transcriptionists that are fully capable of accommodating for specialized language, such as medical terminology, our company can provide off-site services to assist medical clinics or professionals that have audio-recorded medical notes, care plans, or other important data to convert to a text script. These can be transcribed and returned virtually for our clients’ convenience, with added manual reviewing and editing to strengthen quality assurance. Our transcriptionists follow PHIA/FIPPA regulations in regards to personal health data and patient identifiers, and upon request, would agree to an NDA when working with sensitive or personal information.
In a 2013 qualitative analysis, Hennink and Weber studied the quality of verbatim records with the use of transcriptionists and measured outcomes related to errors, cost, transcription time, and effect of the use of transcriptionists on the study participants.
“Therefore, it’s not only the words used by participants that are of interest to qualitative researchers, but perhaps more importantly, the meanings and concepts attached to the words, descriptions, and expressions that provide a deeper understanding of the research issues.”
How This Relates to Our Company
Transcription is vital to qualitative research and current researchers that are in their various stages of data collection may find benefit to utilizing transcriptionists to aid in their body of work. Hennink and Weber’s study showed that transcriptionists seldom made errors, were able to understand and implement colloquial language into their transcribing (which is a barrier difficult to overcome when using speech-recognition software), and assuming that the quality of the recording itself shows no issues, then the quality of the finished document would not suffer as well. With short group discussions and interview style typing, transcriptionists were more effective than any other recording method and reported no negative effects on study participants. Our company’s transcriptionists can help provide these vital services to researchers in various academic and professional fields that require scribing or typing work in order to ensure the quality of data produced for analysis. Again, our transcriptionists follow PHIA/FIPPA regulations in regards to personal identifiers and private study details/information, and upon request, would agree to an NDA when working with sensitive or private information.