THE TORCHBEARER
The entire credit of bringing Medical Transcription Industry
to Coimbatore goes to KGISL. In
association with Heartland Information Services of United States, KGISL started
its operations in 1998, recruited and trained more than 1000 people. When Heartland pulled out, SPI Technologies
of Philippines came into the picture, which also exited from Coimbatore.
ENTRY OF BIG PLAYERS
Based on the manpower created by the KGISL, there was mushrooming
of small-scale MT companies in the early 2000s.
Entry of HealthScribe from Bangalore in the Coimbatore market was
another major event which increased the attractiveness of Coimbatore as a
medical transcription hub. Arrival of one
more MT major C-Bay Systems consolidated Coimbatore’s foothold in the Medical
Transcription industry.
HOME-BASED MEDICAL TRANSCRIPTION
When the model of going to the office everyday and working
in shifts was the norm, there was entry of home-based medical transcription
companies like Focus, Acusis, Spryance, etc., happened and this proved
successful in transforming the industry into a new direction of high
remuneration and flexible work timings. Many
people left their traditional office-based employment to become home-based
MTs. Later, this concept forced other
big companies to introduce home-based work model.
VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE (VRS)
Once considered as a threat to the employment opportunities
in Medication Transcription, VRS later turned out to be a dampener for first-level
manual transcription. The industry still
survives on editing VRS-created documents.
INDUSTRY CONSOLIDATION
Following a lengthy mergers and acquisitions, the MT
industry in Coimbatore now consists of a few larger players like M*Modal, NTS
and Transcend (both part of Nuance), Medusind, etc.
FUTURE
With the implementation of Electronic Health Record (EHR)
looms larger in the US healthcare, I have no idea as to how will this pan out.
