Bureau of Office Services, Inc.
Chicago area's largest medical transcription service goes open source with Crescendo, cuts billing and payroll time by almost 60% and aims for EMR
Building integrated IT environments critical to the future of patient care
Established in 1957, the Bureau of Office Services, Inc. is one of the oldest transcription services in the USA and is the largest in the Chicago area. As a certified government contractor, the Bureau provides 24/7 service to VA facilities nationwide as well as private sector customers including hospitals, clinics, and physician groups. The Bureau is at the forefront of technology, helping customers streamline their documentation of workflow in the most cost-efficient manner while at the same time, decreasing turnaround times.
In 2002, Bureau management made the decision to migrate from its DOS-based dictation/transcription system to a Windows-based solution. Having researched the various modalities available, Richard E. Piasecki, President / CEO, opted to learn more about the Crescendo technology by visiting the Crescendo booth for a full demonstration at the 2002 MTIA conference. "When we left the exhibition hall that day, we knew we had found the reliable hands in which we wanted to entrust our 2.5 million lines a month and were impressed with the Crescendo dictation and transcription technology."
Dictation without boundaries
"Open architecture was a key factor in our decision. While our previous technology required proprietary hardware to operate, the Crescendo open architecture supports most devices from most vendors-a primary source of cost savings, both for our company and our 3,000 authors! In today's world, how can a transcription service claim to be at the forefront of industry automation while forcing customers to invest in over-priced proprietary technology?" questioned Mr. Piasecki.
Embracing industry standards
"Beyond hardware integration, the Crescendo expertise in systems interfaces and commitment to develop products based on industry standards helps us achieve the integrated IT environments that are so critical to the future of patient care," continues Mr. Piasecki. The use of HL7 interfaces allows us to populate demographics from almost any medical information system. For example, when integrated to a facility wide scheduling system, a physician's patient schedule for the day is automatically downloaded to a Portable Windows CE device.
The physician simply selects the patient's name on the DigiDictate-CE screen, dictates the report, and clicks a button to send the voice file automatically via a wireless network to the Bureau's Crescendo DigiScribe-XL voice server where transcription can then begin immediately. This ability to constantly re-populate demographics eliminates manual entry on the transcription side, ensuring data is always up-to-date and reliable as supplied by the medical facility's database.
"We currently have 500 physicians using DigiDictate-CE on their portable devices," highlights Mr. Piasecki.
Securing remote transcription
"With the implementation of HIPAA, security concerns regarding the remote PC were brought to the forefront. Crescendo has conclusively solved this issue for us thanks to their innovative client-server approach," explains Mr. Piasecki. The Crescendo Wide Area Service maintains all voice files, reports and demographics on the central database, ensuring that no sensitive data resides on the local PC at any time. Bureau customers are assured of the integrity and security of their Private Health Information (PHI). Unlike many transcription companies, the Bureau does not allow the transfer or download of patient data to a transcriptionists' PC's. "Our customer's PHI is 100% secure yet remains fully accessible for review, editing and reprocessing if necessary."
This secure platform also allowed the Bureau to eliminate geographical barriers when it came to employing remote transcriptionists-not to mention financial boundaries. "In the old days, we maintained a regional staff in order to minimize phone costs. Now with CWAS being IP-based, we are free to hire qualified transcriptionists from all over the United States and are able to recognize significant savings in phone costs at the same time. Last but not least, CWAS makes it extremely easy for the Bureau to standardize formats and implement template changes centrally without having to access and update every transcriptionist's PC."
Cutting transcription time by 12%
"Once the transition phase was completed, our transcriptionists soon agreed that MedRite-XL was extremely user friendly and reliable. But they really started to see their job in a whole new light when they realized the wealth of features that MedRite-XL was bringing to their desktop, including glossaries, QuicKeys, automatic template pull up, standardized templates, and more. To their relief, MedRite-XL also marked the end of the manual counting of patient demographics and lines. By the end of their work day, the new Crescendo system has eliminated a large amount of repetitive, time-consuming tasks, reducing clerical transcription time by an average of 12% and, thereby, increasing true transcription productivity," notes Mr. Piasecki.
Cutting billing time by 60%
Along with transcription, MedRite-XL also allows the Bureau to manage billing and payroll more efficiently thanks to the customization of billing/pay factors for each client/transcriptionist and a high level of automation. With an HL7 bidirectional interface, MedRite-XL automatically pulls up patient IDs while providing detailed information for each site-Facility, Author, etc. "The process is transparent to the point that a client's billing company can be allowed restricted access to process financial reports directly through our server without going through their customer. These unique, combined features have allowed us to cut our billing and payroll time by almost 60% and provide an additional service to the customer. Crescendo really holds a major competitive edge here," insists Mr. Piasecki.
Aiming toward the EMR
"Another aspect we like about Crescendo is their commitment to their initial business focus. Whatever trends have come and gone over the past 15 years, Crescendo has never deviated from their core competencies. Ultimately, we want to provide our customers with full EMR capability, including voice recognition, charge capture, and electronic signature. We know that Crescendo has both the technology and the expertise to help us build this comprehensive platform, and we all look forward to delivering this level of service to our customers," concludes Mr. Piasecki.
- Nearly 60% reduction in billing and payroll time thanks to the MedRite-XL automated billing feature
- More than 12% of transcription time saved by automated population of patient demographics and automated line counting protocols
- One of the oldest transcription services in the US
- Certified US government contractor
- Transcription of over 2.5 million lines / month
- Service 24/7, 365 days / year
- More than 3000 medical personnel dictating with DigiScribe-XL
- 80 transcriptionists using MedRite-XL
- Enormous battery Uninterrupted Power Supply system assures uninterrupted service
