Roane State medical transcription program has new name

Applications now being accepted

Roane State Community College has changed the name of its one-year medical transcription program.

The certificate program is now called healthcare documentation specialist. The name change reflects changes taking place in the medical transcription industry and the program’s emphasis on new skills that employers want.

While traditional medical transcription remains part of the program, students also practice editing reports generated by speech recognition software.

“Students still need to know transcription,” program director Linda Marsh said. “But the use of speech recognition software is growing. Editing reports generated by this software requires an additional skill set than traditional medical transcription. The job function is quickly going from transcribing to editing and very often the healthcare documentation specialist may edit documentation inside the electronic health record environment. They may also perform quality checks.

“As a community college, we are always responding to the changing workplace. Teaching how to edit speech-generated medical reports is an example of how we help students learn new skills as jobs change.”

Medical transcriptionists/speech recognition editors work in hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices, and transcription services. A career in this field offers flexible scheduling and opportunities to work from home.

Roane State’s program can be completed online, and its job placement rate has been 90-100 percent for the past four years.

Roane State also offers a course series that teaches people to become health unit coordinators. Health unit coordinators typically work in a hospital’s nursing unit, and their duties include maintaining patient records, scheduling tests for patients, ordering supplies, and acting as a liaison between the patient, medical staff, patient’s family, and visitors.

In addition, Roane State now has a series of courses designed to teach people to become medical scribes. Medical scribes work alongside physicians and document patient care as it happens.

For more information about these options, contact Marsh at (865) 481-2012 or [email protected].

Applications are now being accepted. Fall classes begin Aug. 25.