The Hospital Employees Union is warning of a serious backlog in medical transcription services that could impact patients.
HEU spokesperson Bonnie Pearson says almost 17-thousand patient reports are just waiting to be transcribed in Vancouver and Richmond hospitals.
Pearson says the delay could have a serious impact for patients in the system.
“They have a right to expect that there medical records will be timely and back to their doctors so that there charts will be complete and that the Doctor making the decisions on treatment is making it on the most current information so that is the concern on the impact on patients.”
Pearson says the transcriptions could also be deleted if they are stuck in limbo long enough.
“Fraser for example has a policy now of doing a monthly purge of medical records that have been on hold for more than 60 days and we know that provincial health services back in November were already experiencing over 30 day backlogs in out patient reports and operative reports.”
She blames the backlog on a move to privatize transcription services in health authorities.
Providence Health Care is admitting there is a backlog of transcription files within the system but they say it will be dealt with.
Spokesperon Yoel Robens-Paradise there is a simple explanation for the delays.
“Because of an increase, a substantial increase, in the amount of dictation that is occuring and it has nothing to do with our transcription labour model. It is actually in a sense a good thing we have physicians who are doing more dictation because there is a recognition that broader communication across our health system is a good thing.”
Robens-Paradise says the Hospital Employees Union’s claim transcriptions can be deleted if they are delayed long enough is “absolutely not true.”
“There is no deletion of files that haven’t been transcribed by a transcriptionist. There is a process that we have if there is a dictation that isn’t able to be processed but otherwise there is no voice file that is ever deleted until it has been transcribed by a transcriptionist it is just simply not true.”
He says the backlog will be dealt with by mid-April using more staff, and some new technology.
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