In the Philippines, BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry has already exceeded traditional industries in terms of ?exported? services. Call centers, for example, earned an estimated US$490 million in 2005 according to the Business Process Association of the Philippine (BPAP). By 2006, earnings from these industries are estimated to reach over US$1 billion. BPAP is optimistic call center industries will be able to double its earnings in 2006.



Overall, BPO in the Philippines has grown tremendously in the last 5 years. From earning US$150 million in 2000, this year's estimate could reach over US$ 2 billion. Major BPO operations in the Philippines include accounting, insurance processing, telemarketing, legal and medical transcription and animation.

Increasing revenue is not the only good news so far. Records from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) reveal that as of June 2005, BPO has employed a total of 132,000. A year ago, they employed about 91,000. In a span of 12 month, BPOs was able to increase employee based by 45 percent.

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) is expecting the BPO industry to grow further in the coming years. As more investments pour in, more jobs and related opportunities will follow. BPO is likewise spurring the development of local industries. To cope with BPOs and to compete with other countries like India, information and communication technology industries improved their infrastructure and service delivery capacity. Such domino-effect is seen to have a positive effect on the economy as it makes the Philippines a prime market for investment.

Revolutionizing the Concept of ?Work-from-Home?

Thanks to high-speed communication systems, many can now literally earn a decent living just from working at home. With good hearing and a keen understanding for medical terminologies, anyone can venture into the medical transcription business.

Transcription is the conversion of voice to electronic text form. Medical transcription is the conversion of voice data consisting of patient history and information and medical advises from coming from doctors and hospitals into electronic documents. Transcribed data allows easy storage and retrieval.

The business of medical transcription thus requires a medical language specialist that could interpret and transcribe dictation by medical professionals. A voice data usually contains the assessment of the doctor of the patient and covers the history, diagnosis, circumstances of the patient and possible treatment. The information is stored either onto a tape or a digital voice processing system. A medical transcriptionist is expected to transform sometime almost inaudible audio recordings into comprehensive and systematized information.

The demand for electronic medical records have increased, especially in the United States. Federal laws require health institutions to have electronic medical records. To cope with the workload, health institutions in the US and other countries are increasingly outsourcing their medical transcriptions from outside their territory. Medical transcription is currently a US$10 to US$16 billion industry, and which has an annual growth rate of 20 percent. The US employ about 230,000 medical transcriptionists every year, however, the availability of qualified transcriptionists is declining by 10 percent annually.

Our success with call centers make the country a prime choice to provide this kind of service. Medical transcription is one field where the Filipinos can do extremely well for good reasons. We have a huge supply of people proficient in medical terminologies. It also makes sense that Filipinos are more familiar with U.S. medical standards and practices having patterned our system from theirs.

Some enterprising Filipinos have started setting-up medical transcription service right from their home. All is needed is a good computer and a fast Internet connection. Completed work are just sent through e-mail. Of course good editing skills is extremely important.

If the trend continues, a lot of skilled Filipinos can earn good money without ever leaving their house.