Date Dictated and Date Transcribed

Date Dictated and Date Transcribed

These dates should be recorded to monitor dictation and transcription patterns as well as to provide documentation of when the work (dictation or transcription) was done. Some dictation and transcription systems are specially designed to automatically record these dates.

Health care reports are, among other things, legal documents. As part of risk management, dictation and transcription dates should be entered accurately and should not be altered.

Capitalize D and T and follow each by a colon and appropriate date, using numerals separated by virgules or hyphens.

Some facilities prefer to use six-digit dates and others, eight-digit. All these styles are acceptable.

D: 4/18/00
T: 4/19/00

D: 04-18-00
T: 04-19-00

D: 04/18/2000
T: 04/19/2000

Note: ASTM’s E2184, Standard Specification for Healthcare Document Formats calls for identification of the place of dictation as well.

When the month, day, and year are given in this sequence, set off the year by commas. Do not use ordinals.

She was admitted on December 14, 2001, and discharged on January 4, 2002. not ...January 4th, 2002 (4th is an ordinal)

Do not use commas when the month and year are given without the day,
or when the military date sequence (day, month, year) is used.

She was admitted in December 2001 and discharged in January 2002.

She was admitted on 14 December 2001 and discharged on 4 January 2002.