Transcriptions in Medilink involves two things.


  • Generate PATIENTS.TXT and ASSOCIATES.TXT for Emdat capable Transcription service provider to pick-up (i.e. Global Transcriptions, NTS Transcriptions, SyberScribe, etc).
  • Pick-up letters (MS Word DOC files) dropped off by the Transcription provider, and attach to patients.


The process is as follows:


1. Go to Links Menu -> Transcriptions, or press F3.



2. Choose a Range (usually 7 days) and click Create Files For Upload. This will create PATIENTS.TXT and ASSOCIATES.TXT for all patients seen in the previous X days (i.e. 7 days).



3.  These files will be placed in your Medilink data folder. This is typically \\YOUR_SERVER_NAME\MEDILINK\DATA or C:\MEDILINK32BNT\DATA.


Your Transcription provider should be configured to pick-up files from here (in which case you won't need to do anything for this step once it's setup), or may require that you manually upload them.


They may also automatically pick-up your audio transcriptions, or manually require that you upload these - please refer to them for instruction on this.



4. The Transcription provider will now type your letters and deliver them to you.  You should consult with the Transcription provider re manually downloading them etc.


From a Medilink perspective you need to pick-up the Word DOC files from the folder where they are downloaded to. To set this up, type or Explore to the Destination for downloaded files. You typically only need to do this setup once.



5. Now click View Downloaded Docs.



6. Medilink will try and match the downloaded Word .DOC files to patients. It does this by the patient Id which will be the first number in the file name (followed by underscore to separate it from the rest of the filename).


Where this happens you just click File Away All and it will file the letters to the patients.



7. In some cases though this won't always be the case (if the Transcription provider does not have the patient Id for instance) - when that happens you will have to manually attach the patient.


Take the below as an example, there is a DOC file starting with number 1, and another with number 3, and a non matching filename.


i. So we highlight the non-matched letter.


ii. Optionally we click View (i.e. if we cannot make out the patient from the filename alone).


iii. Click Attach.


iv. Then we search for the patient, highlight the appropriate one from the list, then click OK.