Editing and Proofreading

From the first sentence in the Punctuation section: "Punctuation marks are the visual means for making the meaning of a sentence clearly understood . . ."

Determining the meaning of a sentence involves making assumptions about the dictating provider's thought process, for which spoken cues -- pauses, inflection, etc., even dictated punctuation -- are not foolproof indicators.

Editing for clarity is time-consuming, and generally MTs are not compensated and/or appreciated for doing it.

If the trend toward patient ownership of the medical record continues, perhaps patients and their care advocates will become the primary audience for the dictating provider. In that context a new role might evolve for transcription editors whose job involves producing medical reports that are patient-ready, that is, at an appropriate level of readability (a term used by technical writers, it includes understandability). That appropriate level of readability would be one that facilitates communication with the patient as partner and does not -- by, for instance, explicating medical terms -- replace the provider's function of direct patient education (about lab results, diagnoses, etc.).

If you wish to discuss the state of the industry, please go to http://mtchat.com.

Comments on the wiki should be restrained to objective input regarding the accuracy of the information in the wiki.

Thank you.