1. The Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Philippines represents the medical transcription companies in the Philippines. Go to www.mtiapi.com and look for the answers to the following questions:

a. What is medical transcription?Medical transcription refers to interpreting and transcribing dictation by

physicians and other healthcare professionals regarding patient assessment, workup, therapeutic procedures, clinical course, diagnosis, prognosis, etc., editing dictated material for grammar and clarity as necessary and appropriate. Medical transcriptionists (MT) are specialists in medical language and healthcare documentation. The process of medical transcription may involve editing text that has been produced by speech recognition. This requires listening to dictation while reading a draft created via speech recognition technology and editing the text on a computer screen. This editing may range from minimal to extensive, depending on the capabilities of the speech recognition software and the dictating habits of the originator, and may include correction of content as well as punctuation, grammar, and style.

b. What are the exports markets for medical transcription?Other Asian countries including Philippines and India are leading in terms of

offshoring of medical transcription services. Latin America and United Arab Emirates (UAE) followed by Qatar are also some of the emerging markets in the Rest of the World (RoW). Philippine MT companies do mostly medical reports, discharge summaries, operative reports, therapy rehabilitation notes, chart notes, and hospital and clinic reports using state-of-the-art software and equipment from the United States. Typically, healthcare institutes acquire medical transcription services either by the method of offshoring or outsourcing the job to a domestic organization, or opt for both methods. However, multinational healthcare organizations operating internationally prefer both the modes of medical transcription services procurement. This is due to easy allocation of monetary resources, quick turnaround times, and ease of operations which are all based on the nature of reports.

c. What are the Philippines’ strengths in medical transcription?The medical transcription personnel in the Philippines is a pretty young

population, with most transcriptionists falling in the 20-25 age bracket. Most of them have medical backgrounds, are familiar with US medical standards, terminology, and practices, and able to transcribe 1,000 lines per day with 98-99% accuracy rate. About 50% of Filipino MT professionals are physical therapy graduates, 40% are nursing graduates, and the rest are from allied sciences. Philippine MT organizations operate 24 hours, 7 days a week, with the ability to deliver output in 3-6 hours in emergency cases. Each Filipino medical transcriptionist can transcribe up to 1,000 lines per day with 98-99% accuracy rate. With huge pool of highly skilled, quality medical and technology

professionals, the Philippines is the best destination for medical transcription services.

2. Go to www.bpap.org which is the website of Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/).

a. What is business processing outsourcing? What is the business processes outsourced from the Philippines?

BPO. The contracting out of a particular business function to an outside company in order to reduce costs. An example of BPO would be a manufacturing company outsourcing its accounting work to an outside accounting firm, or a telecommunications firm using an outside company to handle customer service. Established 15 years ago, the IT-BPO industry is next to overseas Filipino workers’ remittances as a source of foreign exchange. The industry consists of contact center services; back offices; medical, legal, and data transcription; animation; software development; engineering design; and digital content.

b. What are the export markets for business process outsourcing?

The United States is the biggest market for call center work done from the Philippines, with United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand as emerging markets. The call center industry is the fastest escalating employment provider for Filipino college graduates who seek jobs that have better income generation.

The launching of Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Community in 2015 could boost growth in the country’s BPO sector, as major international firms may rationalize their operations after the lowering of trade and employment barriers in the region. The Philippines is likely to have the inside run for BPO service provision in the economic bloc because of its good performance.

c. What are the country’s strengths in business process outsourcing?The country’s advantages over other nations are: cheaper labor costs;

English-speaking workforce; modern infrastructure such as water, power, roads, telecommunications; large pool of college graduates; and good environment for expatriate trainers and managers. The country also has an affinity with Western culture.

BPAP's thrust is to promote the competitive advantages and the growth potential of the Philippines in existing and new areas of outsourcing and supports the industry in areas such as offshore marketing, education and training, security and privacy, legislation and public policy, among others. It aims to create a supportive environment for the Philippine O&O industry and strengthen the Philippine case to be the preferred O&O destination by the end of the decade.