Some transcription businesses can send staff to events, speeches, or seminars, who then convert the spoken content into text.
Transcription companies primarily serve private law firms, local, state, and federal government agencies and courts, trade associations, meeting planners, and nonprofits.
[citation needed] Before 1970, transcription was a difficult job, as secretaries had to write down the speech as they heard it using advanced skills, like shorthand.
But with the introduction of tape cassettes and portable recorders in the late 1970s, the work became much easier and new possibilities emerged.
[citation needed] Transcribers were able to conduct remote work for many different businesses at their own convenience, provided they met the deadlines required by their clients.
[citation needed] By the early 1900s, the main responsibility of a doctor lay in treating the patient and other responsibilities such as creating a patient's medical record, keeping the files up to date and any other related paperwork eventually fell into the hands of hired medical stenographers.
The initial versions available for purchase, offered the ability to record speech on cassette tapes.
As soon as the usage of computers picked up in organizations and in other sectors, cassette tapes were replaced with better storage devices such as floppy discs and CDs.
Medical transcription specifically is governed by HIPAA, which elaborates data security practices and compliance measures.