Quality Evaluation (QE) - Explanation

Error 1: Medical Word Misuse - 1.00 Point

This category is given the highest number of negative points because of seriousness of its consequences. E.g., a wrong disease can be attributed to a patient and could be carried in the medical record for life, causing incorrect treatment and medical decisions as well as inaccurate billing of the patient's account. If the same misuse is repeated throughout the entire report, it is counted as only one error in that report.

Creative Transcription is also included in this category. This refers to "making up" dictation (words and/or phrases) when what is dictated is not clear.

Error 2: Omissions (Omitted Dictation) - 1.00 Point

This category is given the highest number of negative points because of seriousness of its consequences and its reflection on lack of professional concern and ability of the transcriptionist. If the transcriptionist cannot understand what the dictator is saying, it can be due to the poor dictation quality or lack of knowledge on transcriptionist's part. Help must be sought and a resolution reached, including leaving a blank and asking the dictator for the information.

E.g. omission of an entire laboratory finding because the value itself could not be heard; deleting negative or normal findings; or omitting entire sentences because the main part of it could not be understood. This category does not apply to inconsequential missing words such as articles or conjunctions. Clipped sentences are allowed if it reflects the dictator's style. This error category is meant to apply to purposeful and/or serious omissions.

Error 3: Medical Word Misspelling - 0.75 Point

This category is self-explanatory.

Error 4: English Word Misspelling or Misuse - 0.50 Point

This category refers to errors that have more serious consequences, such as nouns, verbs, or important qualifying adjectives and adverbs (e.g. elicit/illicit, dissent/descent). For errors of lesser consequence, see Error #7.

Error 5: Inappropriate Blanks - 0.50 Point

This category refers to blanks left which, through research, the transcriptionist could have resolved. The purpose of this category is to limit abuse of blanks for the sake of speed, or for higher line counts in a production environment.

Error 6: Grammar Errors - 0.50 Point

Grammar errors include the following -

    ·  Subject-verb agreement.
    ·  Correct use of medical abbreviations.
    ·  Use of proper parts of speech (e.g. laying/lying).
    ·  Use of proper words (e.g. recurrence instead of reoccurrence).
    ·  Incorrect use of nouns and adjectives.
    ·  Use of proper singular or plural nouns, positioning modifiers correctly, use of correct
       verb tense, correction of redundancies and inconsistencies, and editing slang or
       inflammatory remarks when appropriate.


Error 7: Punctuation Errors - 0.25 Point

Punctuation errors at this error level include colons, semicolons, and quotation marks. The reasoning is based on the effect these rules can have on the meaning of the sentence if misused.

Error 8: Typographical Errors and Miscellaneous (Minor Grammar, punctuation, or Omission Errors) - 0.25 Point

Errors at this level include the following -

    ·  Capitalization
    ·  Apostrophes
    ·  Commas
    ·  Hyphens
    ·  Parentheses
    ·  Periods within abbreviations
    ·  Correction of run-on sentences
    ·  Grammar or omission errors that do not seriously effect the dictations meaning.

Error 9: Formatting Errors - 0.25 Point

This error refers to the prevailing departmental/physician guidelines for placement of certain information within the document. E.g. Headers, Footers, templates as defined by the client.

Quality Evaluation (QE) Sampling

During audit, a random 2% of the reports are chosen across disciplines, transcriptionists and hospitals. The same checking is done for a tem of transcriptionists and a specific transcriptionist as well. If the quality drops to below 98.5% in 2 successive sample batches, urgent action is taken by CTech to investigate the causes and take appropriate steps. The steps might include disciplinary action to termination of employment for a certain transcriptionist.

Quality Evaluation (QE) Example

STEP 1: Pick a sample report and calculate the total error value

Total Error Value = 0.5

STEP 2: Compute Error Fraction (Error Value/Line Count)

E.g. For a 250 (65-keystroke line) lines report it will be 0.5/250 = 0.002

STEP 3: Compute Quality

(1.000-0.002)*100 = 99.8%