NEW YORK – Career Step, a leading provider of medical transcription training, has partnered with healthcare IT specialists, HCIT Solutions, to help develop the Jamaican medical transcription field.
“We are extremely pleased to partner with Career Step to provide a best-in-class medical transcription training programme to Jamaicans seeking careers as medical language specialists,” said Dr. Saleem Josephs, President and CEO of HCIT Solutions.
“It is quite evident that the leading U.S. medical transcription service organizations (MTSOs) value the academic rigour and training of a Career Step graduate, and partnering with the right training platform is critical to creating value for both the people of Jamaica and HCIT Solutions’ strategic partners.”
HCIT Solutions is introducing the Career Step training programme to provide Jamaican students with the skills and tools they need to produce high quality transcriptions from dictated audio files of doctor-patient interactions. These transcribed reports become part of a patient’s permanent medical record, including electronic health records.
To be successful, transcriptionists must have a thorough understanding of complex medical language and health-related issues.
“We’re very excited to work with HCIT Solutions to provide Jamaicans with this career training opportunity,” said Cameron Loflin, Vice President of Business Services at Career Step. “Medical transcription is one of the few truly viable work-at-home careers, and this partnership will offer Jamaican students the opportunity to gain the essential skills they need to successfully enter the medical transcription field.”
The HCIT training program will begin enrolling students in the second half of 2009, and plans to enroll up to 1,200 students a year. The final enrollment numbers will ultimately be driven by the hiring demands from HCIT Solutions’ strategic partnerships with U.S. MTSOs.
Dr. Josephs, a Jamaican national, was formally trained in dental surgery, public health policy and corporate finance at New York’s Columbia University. He is launching this new venture after spending the last few years in healthcare investment banking at Bear Stearns & Co. Inc.
During his time at Bear Stearns, Dr. Josephs became familiar with many of the leading U.S. MTSOs currently outsourcing transcription work to India and the Philippines, and wondered why they were not looking at the English-speaking Caribbean.
“The quality of Jamaica’s human capital, its business-friendly environment and competitive cost structure, position Jamaica to become the leading ‘nearshore’ destination for medical transcription outsourcing,” said Dr. Josephs.
“Other leading multinationals have identified Jamaica’s tremendous potential and are currently capitalizing on it, including Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), which recently acquired Jamaica’s leading Call Centre, he noted.
According to Dr. Josephs, “When ACS, a global leader in business process and information technology services, increases its Jamaican employee base to approximately 6,000, almost 10 percent of its global workforce, it is indicative of the compelling value that Jamaica offers as a nearshore destination for offshore-outsourcing.”
The partnership between HCIT Solutions and Career Step will ensure that Jamaica has the talent and the pool of highly skilled workers needed to develop the medical transcription field within the country, and provide a new source of job creation and foreign exchange earnings.
“The Government of Jamaica is highly motivated to attract foreign direct investments to critical and strategic sectors that provide diversified revenue streams, jobs for knowledgeable workers and foreign exchange inflows,” Dr. Josephs said.
Medical transcription is vital to the healthcare process, because the written reports produced by transcriptionists ensure proper and consistent patient care. Advances in information technology and the ability to safely transmit information via the Internet have made it possible for most of the work within the industry to be performed remotely from home or other locations, thus providing flexible work opportunities for many individuals.
