Ensuring Confidentiality While Using Transcribing Services

Maintenance of confidentiality when transcribing client files is cardinal to any transcription service company. The reason behind is that if you are a transcription company, you will get clients from all kinds of fields. They may be related to medicine, law or business. Most of the information they want in their records, and for which they have hired you to put into print, is highly sensitive. Thus, transcription companies should make sure they have ample security and precautionary measures in place for the guarding of data.

Why is confidentiality crucial?

Take the field of medicine for example. It is required by law for all medical institutes to keep all patient records confidential. When hiring a transcription service, ensure that they have measures in place which would ensure that all information remains confidential and is not compromised. Proper disposal and transmission practices should be ensured so that there is no room for any of this information to be leaked.

Same goes for the legal documents. All court hearings are confidential. Thus, transcription service companies should ensure internet security programs and proper data handling software programs.

Maintenance of security and confidentiality

So how does one ensure confidentiality while providing transcription services? For starters, make sure that the company you hire gets all its transcribers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Non Disclosure Agreements or simply Confidentiality agreements are devised to guarantee that information between two parties (in this case, the client to the transcription company), is not shared with a third party and is only used for a certain objective stated in the agreement. This way they will ensure maximum caution while handling information.

Secondly, ask the company how they transmit information to their employees? If they use email, then you need to find another company right away. Theft of data from email is very easy and is the most insecure way of transferring data. In case there is an emergency, the client’s consent must be taken before transmitting information through email.

Apart from that, password protected systems should be used for allocating work. Hard copies should not be encouraged to use and use of portable storage devices should be discouraged at all times. The transcribers should also be asked to delete the audio files and the transcription after the client has okayed them. They will not need those files later, so it is best to dispose them.

Different transcription companies maintain different procedures and standards for maintaining confidentiality. You need to see which one you are most comfortable with. For more information on such secure transcription companies, visit http://www.spectrascribe.net.