Keeping clinical notes shouldn’t be a burden, but it often is. Is there a better way?

Notetaking and recordkeeping are both essential parts of any well-functioning healthcare service.  It’s not just paperwork –accurate, detailed and thorough clinical notes form a vital part of a patient’s care plan.

But ideally, most healthcare professionals would like to be spending more of their time with patients than on admin tasks. Even while recognising the importance of keeping good clinical notes, medical staff can still find it something of a burden.

The dangers of rushing, mistakes – and slow typing

Medical staff face increasingly hard-to-manage workloads. With little time in the day and so much to do (often with limited resources), it’s understandable that admin and notetaking gets pushed to the bottom of the priorities list.

But scrabbling to finish notes at the end of an exhausting day can be risky. Rushing to complete notes can lead to mistakes, inaccuracies, missing information and misunderstandings. This can all have a significant impact on the quality of care provided to patients.

Not everyone is a speedy typist either. Knowing that you’ve a mountain of notes to write up, and that you’re slower than you’d like to be, can be quite stressful. This too can lead to errors in patient records.

How a medical transcription service can help

In order for a healthcare organisation to deliver safe and effective care, medical records and clinical notes need to be:

• Legible
• Accurate
• Detailed
• Up to date
• In a standardised format
• Properly organised and securely stored.

Achieving all of these things while juggling the many tasks on the typical healthcare worker’s daily schedule can be tricky, to say the least.

This is where a handy tool can save the day – a medical transcription service. You can use services like WeType’s DictationMaster software to dictate all of your patient notes, and have them transcribed in as little as 24 hours.

You can even dictate on the move, or when away from your computer. The VoiceMaster mobile app works on all Apple and Android devices, effectively turning your smartphone into a dictaphone. You can record, submit and receive transcribed notes all from the one app.

All of this has one enormous benefit – it gives medical staff more time to see their patients.

What about patient data protection?

Some healthcare organisations may understandably be a little nervous about using medical transcription tools. It’s incredibly important to comply with patient data protection rules, and sending information outside of the organisation may seem a little risky.

This is why services such as WeType are certified by the Government-backed CyberEssentials scheme, and have ISO27001 accreditation. This is the internationally recognised standard for excellent security practice in information security management systems (ISMSs).

It also means that DictationMaster and the VoiceMaster app complies with GDPR and other data protection laws. All voice files are securely submitted using encryption technology.

That’s security and data protection covered. But what about quality?

WeType is a medical transcription service which specialises in working with healthcare organisations. All files are handled by a British-trained UK-based medical typist, and you can use the same typist every time.

This means a guarantee of accuracy, quality and security when transcribing notes. Find out more about how it works here.