Okay, I have been taking note of my extracurricular activities, so to speak, and I must say, I spend more time not typing than I thought! However, most of it is work related. I am looking things up on the internet or fooling around with my shorthand program that I just got and am loading all kinds of shortcuts into - I was doing that as I typed and it really slowed me down. Now I will do all my typing and then go back and pick out the words I want new shortcuts for, on my time. The timer was nice - my DH liked it when I went out and raked with him for 10 minutes. haha.

Hi all,

Well, I have been tediously working on my line count as a newbie with Spheris, watching it rise slowly until this last week. It was a difficult time and I allowed myself to be sidetracked by something going on outside of work. So I spent my weekend making lists.....lists of all of my new shortcuts, and now I'm keeping lists of all new words I learn, I just jot them down and then I'll type them out on my next weekend. I obviously put new words or phrases in my expander program, but for me, if I understand what they are dictating, I am much better at transcribing. Hey, I realize this is probably well known out there, but it's been a slow procress for me to discover this because being new can be overwhelming. I also do as RedPen advised and now work 1 hour at a time, take a short break, and resume for another whole hour. This really works for me because that break gives me something to look forward to and I'm not so tired that I lose interest in what I'm transcribing. I even bought a kitchen timer.

The key, though, for me is this: I was not as focused as I should be. I was more worried about getting line counts than actually "bonding with the patient" in the report. I know this sounds cheezy, someone else invented it, but it works. I slowed down and now I'm up between 130-140 lph with an above 98% accuracy rate. So, actually, slowing down and focusing has saved me, and, of course, taking all of the great suggestions so freely given here!

One more thing, for some reason, I didn't know if I could do this job or not. I want to share this if there are any newbies reading. My production has gone up very slowly and I was beginning to think maybe I made a mistake (my mentor did tell me I have a knack for it so that helped), but you think you should be farther along than you are and if your not, your a loser...you know that type of thinking?! Well, it was suggested to me that I let go of that negative thinking and, instead, think of reaching an even higher goal than the one I have!! Crazy! I tried it, though, and with prayer and focus and a higher expectation, I think I just might get there!

I'll keep you posted on my line counts this next week!

Thanks!
Kelli

Kelli

Just found this discussion and very glad to have done so! I am fairly new to MT, about 1-1/2 years, work for a large health care provider w/3 large hospitals, hundreds of dictators, and residents rotating through. I know that the top producers here do 250 lph (only a few out of 80 MTs) and I am wondering "What is the secret?" Have been increasing my line counts slowly but that seems far off yet. Recently began looking at the ways I shoot myself in the foot, found some of the ways mentioned here, some of my own, and found some here that I had not thought of....thanks! Increases are being seen and I feel sure more are on the way.

We have a LOT of people where I work who complain about our minimum line requirement and how hard it is to meet due to ESL dictators, number of different dictators, etc. I have a feeling we could all benefit by doing as suggested and looking inside rather than outside for a solution to the production problem...

Thanks again--I will certainly share this exercise w/any who are interested. (have already encountered people who want to complain about low production levels but have no interest in working to overcome the problem, as mentioned on the 1st page of this thread!)
Beth

Our students and graduates keep referring each other over here to review these exercises. They work! You do need a solid education as a base first, of course! That goes without saying, but I said it anyway.