Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority

The Antigua and Barbuda Investment Authority announced that it has created 40 new Job Opportunities in the Medical Transcription Project. The ABIA has reorganized the project so that effective January 2009, 40 more Antiguans and Barbudans can Day Classes and Evening Classes at the Antigua and Barbuda International Institute of Technology.

The Executive Director of ABIA Mr. Lestroy Samuel (says) "one of the goals of ABIA is to create high quality and long-term employment for our people. Medical Transcription is one such opportunity with a shortage of over 100,000 in the USA alone. The industry continues to grow in the 7-10% range and given the current economic climate we are seeking to develop and employ more persons".

On January 15th 2009 at 4:30 p.m. the ABIA will hold an informational at ABIIT for persons who want to become Medical Transcriptionists. Applicants will be asked to take an online screening test to help select the best persons to go forward and train to become MTs. Currently over 100 persons are enlisted in Day, Evening and Online classes. The curriculum used by ABIA to train MTs is among a select few that are certified by the American Healthcare Documentation Integrity Association (AHDI).

Early in 2009 the ABIA will select the companies to employ graduates of the class in Production Centres.

Each day in hospitals all over the United States and much of Europe, hundreds of thousands of patients are admitted and discharged. Examinations are conducted, procedures are performed and recommendations are made. Verbal dictation is by far the most common method for documenting and reporting the results of examinations and procedures. Physicians generally use a digital dictation system to record their findings. Dictating reports verbally not only allows physicians to be more thorough in their reporting, but also saves them a great deal of time. The process of converting this voice dictation to an electronic data format is known as medical transcription, and is performed by highly skilled medical transcriptionists, which must know and understand the entire language of medicine.

The size of the global industry is US$14 billion annually and there is an accurate shortage of medical transcriptionists in North America.