IDS Infotech to venture into medical scribing business

Ruchika M. Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 27

IDS Infotech, a Chandigarh-based IT company, is now pioneering into a new business vertical that is slowly making its way to the Indian shores. With medical scribing being made compulsory in the USA, the business of real time scribing seems to be the next big thing where the Indian IT companies can make a mark.

It has bagged a $1-million contract from US-based Augmedix for doing real time medical scribing. As patients discuss their case history with doctors in top US hospitals, the medical scribes hired by IDS Infotech here, are connected through video conferencing and are recording the patients’ medical history and medical records. As the US healthcare industry becomes more interactive and since under the Obamacare initiative it is mandatory to maintain health records, the medical scribes are helping them out.

Talking to The Tribune today, Ishika Aggarwal, corporate development head, IDS Infotech, said after getting the $1-million contract, they have set a new vertical, different from its BPO business. “We are hiring medical graduates and science graduates, with knowledge in the field of medicine as medical scribes. We already have 50 people on board who have starting scripting the medical files of patients in the US on a real-time basis. We plan to have 500 medical assistants/scribes on board. Once 500 medical assistants start working real time, we are assured to this business growing to $10 million annually,” she said.

Explaining the work of medical scribes, she said they act as the physician’s support system — saving a significant amount of their time by creating Electronic Health Records (EHR). Medical assistants prepare the patients charts before the patient’s scheduled visit, thereby allowing the physician to be proactively focused and prepared for the upcoming appointment.

‘As of now, we are the sole vendors for Augmedix in India, and through Augmedix, we are doing medical scribing for almost all top hospitals in the USA,” she said.