Transcend Announces Availability of Next Generation Transcription Platform for Hospitals and other Healthcare Providers

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TRANSCEND SERVICES INC. (NASDAQ: TRCR) today announced the availability of Encore, the Company’s new medical transcription platform for hospitals and other healthcare providers. Encore increases transcriptionist productivity and is offered under a cost-saving SaaS (Software as a Service) model, which eliminates capital expenditures and maintenance fees.

“Our Internet-based platform offers the flexibility for healthcare providers to choose the method by which they want to increase their efficiency and productivity”

“We’re excited to share this new platform with healthcare providers and show them how it can reduce overhead, streamline productivity and accelerate the meaningful use of electronic health records (EHRs),” comments Susan McGrogan, Transcend’s President and Chief Operating Officer. It also allows our customers direct access to the speech recognition benefits of our partner, MultiModal Technologies. This technology, coupled with our training, promises cost savings through improved productivity. Encore, which was built to accommodate the healthcare industry’s drive to XML data, tags and structures narrative data so that information is easily integrated into a patient’s EHR and may be queried for quality reporting.

Enterprise application will expand market reach

Encore’s availability marks the beginning of a new era for Transcend, which has historically been a provider of medical transcription services. With the advent of Encore, the company is expanding its market reach to hospitals and other healthcare providers who may prefer to keep their in-house transcription departments, but take advantage of a speech-recognition enabled enterprise application that resides in Transcend’s secure data centers.

“Our Internet-based platform offers the flexibility for healthcare providers to choose the method by which they want to increase their efficiency and productivity,” said Ken Ravenelle, Transcend’s Chief Technology Officer. “Whether they choose to reduce overhead with Transcend’s transcription service or license the Encore application with our new SaaS model, Encore’s robust features will move them into the next generation of cost-savings by streamlining workflow, improving productivity and speeding up the time it takes to complete quality clinical documentation.”

Installation of Encore has been streamlined as well. Facilities can deploy the Encore platform within 45 days of contract signing. In addition, the client resources required for implementation are minimal, typically about 30 hours to gather data, test the system and train users. Once Encore is implemented, adding and training new employees will take less than one hour each.

Robust features and value-add

Transcend has partnered with MultiModal Technologies, the market’s leading developer of Speech Understanding technology, to give Encore the enriched speech recognition capabilities that have resulted in increased efficiency and productivity. Among the platform’s other robust features are its built-in reporting, electronic signature and easy-to-use administrative tools to improve efficiencies, as well as its advanced editing tools, which enable significant productivity increases.

Encore enables transcriptionists to easily manage their work lists, change passwords or profiles from the web or desktop, complete patient look-ups from anywhere in the facility, view QA and provide comments in a user-friendly application. Shortcuts and simple-to-create “normals” allow users to customize their environment for even greater productivity. “Everyone who uses Encore’s advanced functions will find that their productivity increases, saving time and money,” explains McGrogan.

Encore’s key features include:

Structured data can be interfaced to any type of EMR or EHR and can be transferred into multiple systems based on the facility’s requirements.
Adding and maintaining users, including physicians, is accomplished with one direct set-up.
Modifying and adding work types is easily managed by the client.
Quality Assurance works within the Encore application without the need to switch between QA and transcription modes. QA can quickly locate the voice version of the transcription with one simple click at any place in the document without the need to search the entire document. Transcriptionists can view the changes made by QA for better efficiency and productivity.
Facility Manager will spool print jobs and distribute documents to the interface of choice – fax, print or interface with EMRs or EHRs.
Audit trail tracks and records all documents from initial dictation to QA and document distribution. Every user who opens the document is tracked to comply with HIPAA regulations.
Single source login and centralized web console enables users to handle all permitted tasks from a single screen.
Standardized reports and ad hoc queries easily generated by the user.

“The bottom line with Encore is that we really listened to our transcriptionists who produce clinical documentation all day long, and we incorporated their ‘wish lists’ into the Encore platform solution,” McGrogan notes. “From customizable command/short-cut keys to Windows-based menus to backups done on our servers to prevent work loss due to a computer crash – we offer it all.”

About Transcend Services, Inc.

Transcend Services is a leading provider of clinical documentation solutions for healthcare organizations. The company’s high-quality transcription services and applications – along with leading data extraction and reporting tools – provide critical data needed to document patient encounters and help drive clinical decision making. Transcend provides clients with exceptional quality, turnaround time and service so that they can focus on what matters most – their patients. For more information, visit www.transcendservices.com.

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