BPO Services, NAITA to train medical transcriptionists

Anjana Samarasinghe

BPO Services (Pvt) Ltd subsidiary of Sumathi Global Consolidated (Pvt) Ltd entered in to an agreement with National Apprentice and Industrial Training Authority NAITA to train Medical Transcriptionists for the local BPO industry yesterday.

Managing Director of BPO Services Thilanga Sumathipala said there is huge demand for the Medical Transcriptionists in the BPO industry. Sri Lanka has potential in this sector and we are trying to train people to international standard in the field of medicine.

Medical transcription is a process of which physicians would dictate medical details of patients through a Dictaphone or similar electronic voice capturing system. Then this will be transferred as a voice file to a computer in the hospital or clinic.

Medical Transcriptionists access these files from their locations through Internet and Internet connections and transcribe the details of the voice files into a readable text format with the help of a word processor. Thus making medical records of patients available for further clinical care, investigation or reimbursement purposes.

There are over 25,000 vacancies in this sector globally and more medical transcriptionists will be required by the industry in future. Vietnam, India and Sri Lanka have the opportunity to cater this demand through their BPO industries. "But there no sufficient medical transcriptionists in Sri Lanka and our company has nearly 200 vacancies for Medical Transcriptionists," he said.

BPO Services Ltd collaboration with Blue Pearl Informedia Pvt Ltd in India will conduct the training programme which will be a six months Diploma Course. Training will be provided free. A security deposit of Rs 10,000 have to be made by the student which will be refund after completion of the course.

At the initial stage a medical transcriptionist could earn Rs 20,000 per month and this will increase further. However medical transcriptionists could do their job even at their homes.

Sumathipala said this is a huge foreign exchange earner to the country as Indian Rupee become much stronger against the dollar many global clients will choose Sri Lanka for their Medical Transcriptions.

Chairman of the NAITA Amal Senalankadhikara said that they will provide Rs 600 for students who follow this course per month. "We are also looking at possibilities of increasing this amount in the future.

This project will help us to attract more investors to the country, he said."