Thursday, March 22, 2007 BPO firm stresses role of R&D
BUSINESS process outsourcing companies in Cebu, particularly in the field of medical transcription, need to heavily invest in research and development (R&D) to become globally competitive, said an official from the International School for Medical Transcription (ISMT).
“When this industry started, it did not see the importance of technology in R&D,” said ISMT chief marketing officer Mawit Go.
Cebu-based ISMT is the training arm of Northern Transcription-Works Inc. (NTWI), an 80-seater medical transcription company serving 40 clinics and over 900 doctors worldwide since 2003.
Go said 15 to 20 percent of NTWI’s gross income is invested into R&D.
“As a company, we have looked towards technological and systems innovation not only to improve employee productivity but also to make operations efficient,” she said in a statement.
Because of this, NTWI is now reaping the fruits of its labor, Go added.
At the 7th e-Services Philippines (ESP) Awarding Ceremony held last Feb. 15 at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel in Mandaluyong City, NWTI won two major awards: The Most Innovative Product of the Year and the Best Website.
EnPlay, which was NTWI’s winning entry, is an internally developed advance audio player software that addresses audio problems through its ability to remove certain components of sound that hampers the clarity of dictation, and also allows medical transcriptionists (MTs) to fully manipulate the audio file they are transcribing.
“One of the challenges faced by MTs is the quality of the raw dictation file received from doctors because the audio may contain interference like mumblings, doctors flipping some x-rays, etc. Through EnPlay, it reduces unwanted sounds without sacrificing quality,” said Richard Tiong, ISMT chief information officer.
EnPlay initially “cleans” the audio by automatically canceling noise frequencies above or below the distinct range of the human voice.
MTs can also filter out ambient sounds from the audio, leaving only the integral sound produced by the doctor’s voice.
The software also allows MTs to manipulate the component sound by adjusting speech speed without changing the pitch.
Tiong also features an Audio Visualization screen that visualizes the sound and thus, saves time.
While EnPlay and other internally-developed productivity tool is exclusive to NTWI, Go said the company is contemplating on having these technologies licensed to other medical transcription companies, which will help boost the quality and productivity of the MT industry in the country.
“We are open to have it patented but we need to further enhance the products before it will be rolled out,” she said, adding the company is now working on the advanced version of EnPlay called EnPlay 2.
The ESP Awards was open to all ESP 2007 exhibitors, including members of the industry associations such as the Animation Council of the Philippines Inc., Business Processing Association of the Phils., Contact Center Association of the Phils., Medical Transcription Industry Association of the Phils. Inc., Game Developers Association of the Phils., and the Philippine Software Industry Association. (MMM)
