CBay Systems USA is a Medical Transcription Company, based at Annapolis, Maryland, USA offering offshore Medical Transcription Services, specifically from India. Three pioneers - Raman Kumar, Skip Conover and Mahidhar Reddy, founded CBay. CBay currently has about 60 people in the US and an equal number in India. In India, CBay has 25 production centers that are independently owned and managed, and these centers have been trained by CBay and constitute its processing capability. The following is based on excerpts from a detailed talk with Mr. Mahidhar Reddy at Bangalore.

Many companies who made investments in developing their intangible assets (trained MTs) are finding it difficult to face aggressive new entrants. We asked Mr Mahidhar to share some wisdom from his experience, regarding development and retaining of human resources. "As in any human resource intensive industry, it is important that the production center treats its MTs as partners and not as employees," he asserted. Spelling out his mantra, he said that the only way to combat human resource attrition is by having:

 A high quality physical infrastructure - airy, well-lit office with a tidy and comfortable layout, good international brand PCs, plenty of reference books and training material.

 Clearly documented and articulated human resources policies on incentives, performance appraisal, holidays, compensatory leave etc.

 Wages that are on par with industry standards.

In order to establish itself and build up a sustainable company, a production center has to invest in building a management team that possesses excellent human resource management skills, and a process orientation that is geared toward continuously improving quality (practices such as TQM, Kaizen etc), Mr Mahidhar stressed.

We discussed in length the issues involved in attempting to run a business model without a dedicated infrastructure in the US. "For a production center to grow in India it needs a US partner. This is because offshore outsourcing is still far too new for US hospitals to be comfortable with; they have many reservations including ones of quality, patient record confidentiality and enforceability of cross-border contracts." he explained. He went on to add that an Indian production center needs to partner with a good US company with the following attributes:

 US partner has a long-term vision and is not "get rich quick" oriented in their attitude to the production center i.e. should have a deep involvement in building up the production center's capabilities and helping it meet with quality requirements.

 US partner should have an editing base in the US and be prepared to provide editing support for a minimum of 6 months.

 US partner should invest in training the production center by deputing senior editors to India to augment Indian MT skills.

We shifted our focus to career prospects in MT. "What were the basic qualifications and skills desirable? What are the growth prospects" we queried. "The prospects for an MT are excellent. Like any knowledge-based profession, the key asset is the knowledge and skill that an MT acquires and he/she can build an excellent career based on this asset. In India, medical transcription is still in a nascent stage and as the industry grows, numerous career growth options will open up, both in technical stream (transcription), lateral streams (editing, training) and in management." he highlighted. "The wonderful thing about this career is that virtually any graduate with good English skills and a reasonable IQ can make the grade. Production centers, when selecting MT trainees, look for people with a good command of the English language and a keenness to learn. In terms of remuneration, the range is quite wide depending on the locale (city) and also the skill level of the MT." he added.
While on career, we touched on the plethora of 'training institutes' having mushroomed all over the country, all of them claiming to offer comprehensive training. Mr Reddy expressed his deep concern about institutes not being upto mark, and promoted by fly by night operators. He advised that when evaluating a training institute, the potential trainee should evaluate the institute by:

 Checking with alumni of the institute who have secured jobs about the course content and its adequacy and the faculty.

 Checking the background of the promoters - do they have a long-term commitment, do they have good managerial backgrounds or are they shady entrepreneurs out for a quick buck?

 How many hours of transcription practice is offered as part of the course? At a minimum, it should offer about 35 hours per week x 16 weeks.

To be continued�.


By our special editor,
Bangalore,
26 April 2000