UK’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Pilots Transcription Outsourcing In Philippines
Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, England, said it is conducting a small-scale pilot of outsourcing transcription to the Philippines. Liz Sanford, the hospital’s acting director of finance and resources, said the move aims to test digital dictation for typing clinical letters, which partly involves exploring a model commonly used across the National Health Service (NHS). The initiative will run for six weeks and includes the review of 400 letters for each of the three models the NHS is exploring, including digital transcription, digital dictation, and voice recognition, said Sanford. She added that the outsourcing fully complies with the information governance strategy as the data centers are based in the UK, and that they will assess any quality or financial benefits once the pilot is completed. Sanford also stressed that no jobs will be affected as a result of the pilot. However, union leaders dubbed the hospital’s move as a sell-off, which they said is not in the public interest.
