"Companies need to have American access to succeed in
the MT field"
- Tony Hales, CEO, HealthScribe India Ltd.
HealthScribe has been the big brother of Medical Transcription
(MT) companies in
India. The company's Chief Executive Officer Tony Hales spoke
to Bangalorebest.com on the industry and the need for high quality
transcriptionists.
·HealthScribe, the name sounds BIG in the MT industry. When
was the foray into the Indian arena made?
We started our operations in India way back in 1993 as the first
players in the transcription industry after studying the Indian
trading system for several years. Actual production in HealthScribe
started in 1996 at the Bangalore headquarters, which has 55,000
sq ft space. Since then, we've been doing business worth millions
of dollars business with American University hospitals and other
hospitals in the US. We are growing at a cent percent rate and
expect to continue for years to come.
· Why was India chosen to set up shop?
Faunda, the founder of HealthScribe, had Indian trade knowledge
which prompted the setting up of the HealthScribe office here.
Then, the American market requirement for transcriptionists
exceeded the supply. At the same time, we decided to offer a
different kind of solution by seeking the services of people
other than Americans; and we collectively zeroed in on India.
* How is your current operation in India?
We carry out our major operations in Bangalore and we have many
partners from Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad and Trivandrum.
· Why have so many Indian companies failed to thrive in the
booming transcription market?
Many companies rushed into this field just to make fast
bucks as they thought it was easy to tap the market. But, actually,
this is a tough industry requiring heavy capital investment
and world-class management. Particularly, companies have to
understand the American market in depth. Unless they have a
bigger American presence, it is hard to succeed and I can say
that HealthScribe is successful for the same reason. I would
also say that slow but steadier growth with quality products
is enabling our company to attain cent percent growth consistently.
· Are there any instances of Indian companies being successful
without the America presence?
There are two or three Indian players doing well in the industry
because of their quality products.
· How do you visualise the future of the MT industry?
It has a great future, particularly from the employment point
of view. There is an annual requirement of 35,000 transcriptionists
in America. While America meets a part of that demand, we find
India as the gap filler with abundance of manpower.
· What training module does the company have for their candidates
to meet the expected criteria?
We take in candidates who are good in English besides a basic
education after subjecting them to many comprehensive tests.
They also need to have typing and medical knowledge. We invest
heavily on our training programme that spans nearly nine months
in order to have excellent transcriptionists. They do meet our
expectations after the completion of the training.
· Do you serve hospitals located in other countries besides
America?
At the moment, we serve only American hospitals as the demand
is very high. We are also expecting the market from New Zealand,
Australia, Singapore and European countries. We may consider
serving them after some years.
· Medical transcription is a very stressful job. How does
HealthScribe help employees cope with this?
We allow them to work in a 'quality environment'. We
allow our people to carry out physical exercises once in one-and-half
hour. We offer tea/coffee breaks quite frequently so that they
don't feel the burden of constantly listening to transcripts.
We also organize social outings, games, cultural programmes
and other recreational activities for the benefit of our employees.
7:56:26 AM 
India. The company's Chief Executive Officer Tony Hales spoke
to Bangalorebest.com on the industry and the need for high quality
transcriptionists. 
