I learned this many years ago: I type in phrases ,even when I'm not expanding but SM
Posted By: Becky on 2006-03-17
In Reply to: No, I mean physically type faster with my hands. - Sorry.
I use Expanders VERY extensively. Doesn't ever have to be a canned report. Everybody says "the patient" and everybody says "within normal limits" for two examples that I'm sure you already are using. No telling how many thousands of abbreviations I have.
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Unless a facility name accompanies the phrases you hear/type, you should not capitalize.
xxxx
41 YO here, learned on the job 22 years ago(sm)
and still love MT. I do acute care, clinic, whatever they throw at me. Started out in a hospital in 1983 and went home/nationals in 1996. Been working at home ever since and have no desire to go back in-house.
I'm 49, confident, learned this 18 years ago on the job, sm
still learning. Looking to get into another profession. Offshoring keeps our wages here low.
Now! I work smarter - not harder. I learned through the years how to do this.
I have a pretty stress-free MT job and absolutely love it! Make good money and am enjoying life and my teenagers a bit more.
I realized that the job is not everything.
I've been doing this doc for many years, so I've learned how to function with him. sm
I can tell what's a stutter, what's another word, what's just an "uh." Years of experience will get you through a lot.
Wouldn't want to do his charts all day, of course, but a few per day aren't bad. I haven't had to send his to review in a long time, but they do take a little longer to shuffle through.
Have been Type 2 for almost 10 years...sm
now. I'm sorry to say, after a great start (lost around 60 lbs. in less than a year, got BS down to normal), I did some "back-sliding" and have been having a hard time ever since controlling. I agree, exercising helps tremendously, when I was walking a mile a day, I was able to stay off BP meds, got BS down almost to normal. I would advise getting into an education program when you can, I did that about a year ago, and I feel better now about having the knowledge I need - just need the will power to put it into use!
I have been an MT for 12+ years and on my best day I can only type
between 150 and 200 lph. Granted, I don't work in the most MT friendly platform, but even in better platforms, I don't usually do more than 150-200 lph straight typing. On a good day, I work 5-6 hours total. I never sit for a full shift straight through and I average 1000-1200 lines a day, which suits me fine for now. My hat is off to those MTs who can type 300 lph.
i have 19 years experience and still type 220+ lines/hour
without having to cherrypick. That's just what we do when we get into a backlog. That way, we never have to outsource ... thank God ... and we won't lose our jobs to India ... even BETTER!
Common phrases. LOTS of common phrases, just like ops. SM
pser = the patient was seen in the emergency room
wwd= the wound was dressed
Just two tiny examples. People need to learn to use their Expander programs. I'd be making like $10 per hour without mine. I also work in a job where I do the work type I do best. That's very important. I would imagine (don't know for sure) that H&Ps and DSs have the most lines (I work on a gross line count) but you have to think more, look up more, and type more to get those lines.
I have everything magicked in there. That's the way I like it, that's the only way I will work.
Never learned it? Hah! I learned it and still didn't like it.
3-1/2 years experience, type cardio only on clinic account, and make 9 cpl nm
nm
Expanding on the expanders
I also create Expanders for two words in a sequence that I mess up all the time. For example, I often type onteh instead of on the, so I have an Expander for that. I make a lot of these double mistakes where it is a misspelling plus a missed spacebar. I also misspell some of my expanders sometimes so I have made expanders for my misspelled expanders! For example, I have TOLW and TOWL for tolerated the procedure well.
Expanding if you are not supposed to
can be called on an audit and I have seen people fired for what they call "line padding" by doing such things.
Advice on expanding my skills..
If I want to specialize in Orthopedic or Cardiology or some other specialty, what is the best way to do this? I currently only do ER.
Would I have to enroll in an on-line school or can I just use practice tapes?
Any advice is appreciated!!
spelling numbers out is expanding for more $$$..nm
x
Yeah, they might be expanding and getting new accounts ! - sm
look on the bright side. Anyway its not best to jump ship from one job until you know you will be happy at another....which is why I always work 2....cover your butt.
Ctrl + Alt + A also stops expanding.
nm
shorthand expanding too slowly
Just wondering if anyone can tell me how to get my ShortHand to expand the text faster? I know there is a settng under preferences, and I have tried several variations, but still not expanding any faster. Thanks in advance.
...funny! (expanding my post above, got cut off)
x
My trick for stopping expansions from expanding....SM
This might not work for you but I find it quicker to add it in my shortcuts. I simply add the last letter on it again when I don't want it to expand. For example, BP = blood pressure but BPP = blood pressure. COPD = chronic.... but COPDD = COPD. That's a lot faster for me than to do all those other steps. Just thought I would throw that out there in case it might work for someone else too.
Re: expanding with punctuation, more info inside
I have been working on this platform for over a year and absolutely LOVE it. It is not the same as autocorrect expansions. This platform offers a LOT more.
I will type this directly from my manual to explain how the ESP abbreviations are expanded:
Press or type a delinter (a spacebar, enter, period, colon, semicolon, comma, question mark or exclamation point) that is appropriate to the sentence text or punctuation. The exapansion appears AS SOON AS you type the delimiter.
You can highlight entire sentences, paragraphs, etc and enter them directly into the ESP list and make a short abbrev. to retrieve them.
To add an ESP, press control, control and type it directly in, or highlight text in your document and then press control control and name your short abbreviation for it.
Sometimes, depending if your sentences are really LONG you will have to copy/paste directly into ESP and then give it a short.
In addition, with ESPs you can format words to be BOLD by inserting a tag. You can also put a tag in for something underlined, italic, etc. They also allow you to insert pauses and backups in your ESP so that you can type yof and get the hyphen first -year-old female.
Pauses are really neat when you want to nest an ESP inside another one. For example: if you put the following entries in your ESP:
lt (left)
tphp (The patient had pain in the)
(The ESPs need to first be created and exist)
Now you type the abbreviation containing the pause then press spacebar. The sentence expands to the point of pause and then type the abbreviation you want to nest, press the spacebar and hit enter. The complete next appears in your document. Believe me, this is something Autocorrect cannot do and really comes in handy especially when you have really repitious dictators who always give the same order on vital signs, etc.
You can also run a microsoft word macro as part of an expansion if you want. There is a special dialog box that the ESP uses for this.
ESPs also allow suffixes to be added to root words (another feature) but this is something I haven't used much yet.
You can also create more than one list of ESPs (can have 2 open at a time).
This platform also allows you to make "normals" for really long documents. Say you have a 2 page op report that a doctor will use over and over. You can just bring the entire document in. You can edit these normals at any time. These are like templates that you can insert jump codes, all your headings, numbering formats, etc.
On this board, I've been reading a lot about how people run to buy either Instant Text or ShortHand (as these are compatible with Dictatphone) but this is not something you have to run out and purchase. The ESPs offer a lot more than autocorrect.
So far, my one list of ESPs has over 20,000 entries and my line counts daily for 8 hours average between 1500 and 1800. Not bad.
The platform is REALLY easy to work from as another poster said you can pull up previous dictation from another Transcriptionist and copy/paste directly into the document you are typing. This is a really great feature when you have those really lousy dictators who pretty much say the same physical exam, etc. You can then just follow along and edit as you go.
It really is easy to use, and personally I love the Expander and have no complaints. Good luck.
Alt + Shift will toggle the esp off for a quick pause in expanding...
Using the example given were pt expands to prothrombin time but you want to keep it as PT, you would type PT and then hit the Alt + Shift key combination, continue typing, no need to hit the key combo after PT because it's a "one-stop" fix. Hope this helps :-)
Are you referring to expanding text or real macros?
Can't tell you what you are doing wrong if you don't tell us what you are doing.
In 12 years of MT'ing I've never re-read an entire chart. Edit/read as I type. nm
x
overused phrases
 LOL has to be one of the most overused phrases today.
I use w for was and wr for were within phrases to differentiate.
x
words and phrases
I currently only use the auto correct feature in Word. So my Expanders are mostly 2-3 word phrases and a few longer words like hypertension, hyperlipidemia, gastroesophageal, etc.
CATCH PHRASES ARE "AMAZING" - NOT!
It's time to move on from these phrases that I've heard ad nauseum from people who can't think of anything on their own.
"At the end of the day."
" . . . amazing."
" . . . awesome."
Anybody else?
You have to change your way of thinking about phrases in IT. sm
Think first letter of each word instead of full words and your phrases will come up. No memorizing unless you want to put customized shorts in IT. I watch the advisory lines more than my document window so my eyes don't cross. I just wouldn't work without IT because my productivity went way up in a really short time.
(Forgot to say, 'type the phrases
Words and phrases advisories
Hello,
Any time you give a word or phrase a dedicated short form (meaning a short form consisting of 2 or more letters) it automatically goes into the Phrases Advisory.
An entry with only one letter for a short form automatically goes into the Words Advisory.
Favorite words/phrases
And then there's the psychiatrist who ends every sentence with "you know." Well, I sure do now.
Three word phrases are all that I put in my expander.
dd
More about phrases as other poster addressed
Since the dictators seem to say the same thing in so many different ways, I have found I often have to add a a bit extra, and it would have been easier if I had thought of that when I first started making Expanders so I would have started right off being very consistent.
For an example CTDW, CSTDW, CDTDW = (respectively) continue to do well, contintues to do well, continued to do well. - It is amazing how many things will overlap or conflict.
Or, they will use a phrase with the word "or" or "and" in it AND without them ...
like, cyanosis, clubbing, edema ... and cyanosis, clubbing, and edema ... Or even worse, they flip the words around to clubbing, cyanosis, and edema.
So many dicators and so many ways of saying the same thing. That is what gets frustrating to me. It's endless.
Are you using just word shortcuts, or phrases? sm
You should be able to type entire sentences with just a few keystrokes.
Maximize your expander with phrases rather than words.
Check out every productivity board that you can for more tips and tricks. Even after 8 years I've increased my speed with productivity tips.
How does it work with typing common phrases,
But how does that work in relation to typing phrases that are common usage, the patient, return p.r.n., etc.
I grew up in FL, and my black teachers used a lot of these phrases...sm
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet because every northerner I know has asked me about this..."I'm fixin'to" as in, "Get your shoes on, we're fixin' to go to church." 2 of my 5 elementary teachers were black, and they both used this phrase all the time, so it was perfectly normal to us. Those teachers weren't any less educated, they were just native southerners raised in segregated communities. My hometown was still segregated well into the '80s.
It's funny, half the phrases people are naming on here I wouldn't have thought were southern-specific, they're that common to me.
Some single words, but mostly 2-3 word phrases.
I have a few full sentences, too, but with so many different doctors, I tend to stick to the more commonly used short phrases, and build sentences & paragraphs from those.
Words and Phrases in Instant Text
The reason why you have a Phrase advisory different from the Word advisory in Instant Text is because these two advisories work differently.
The Phrase advisory works more like a traditional expander: you have a short form (abcz or tp) and it expands what you defined for it whether it is a word or a phrase.
The Word advisory works like a wild card search. There are no dedicated short forms. You type the first letter and any letter that is in the word like cardpu or cdpu for cardiopulmonary.
If you want the words to be in the Phrase advisory without having them cluttering your phrase selection you may want to follow sm's suggestion and create a glossary where the short forms are identical to the words themselves. They would then all be in the Phrase section, but as an included glossary these words would show up at the bottom of the phrases of your base glossary assuming it is a standard IT glossary (no words in the Phrase section).
If you need help, please contact tech support at Textware Solutions and we will be happy to guide you.
Marianne
Textware Solutions
Words, phrases, chunks of text ... sm
If a word has 5 letters or more and I use it more than once a month, I make it an expansion. Albeit, only do 1-2 a day this way but I don't have to add to my expansions daily now as I've done this for years and it is built up. Examples: Use fuv for follow up as a verb. Use fun for followup as a noun/adjective. Use a k in front of all drugs so kt is Tylenol, ka is aspirin, kprv is Pravachol.
Phrases -- do all kinds of combinations as you use them. Example: Use tpw for the patient was. Use mgr for murmurs, gallops or rubs.
Chunks of text -- not quite a whole standard but more than just a phrase, e.g., sentences. Example: Use nka for no known allergies but nkah for ALLERGIES: No known allergies.
Abbrevs/Acronyms -- Let your Expander do the all cap work for you and use an x to show expanded versions. Example: Use copd for COPD but use copdx for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
You should be able to skip along with the dictator just using expansions with occasionally typing whole words.
You can add phrases to single word glossary in IT (SM)
When you insert the medication and other information, hit tab and then, backspace to the first letter. It will ask you "are you sure? and just hit return and it will accept it.
I have many two and three word phrases in my single word glossary list. There is a web site for IT users which you can Google for; it is easy to find - forum style.
Having IT provide phrases, sentences is its best advantage. Two words together.
But one word? By the time it arrives in the layout screen, you have typed all but the last letter.
claudicatio - semicolon
of the - bracket
I miss Word's auto correct boohoo
Ever hear the phrases "Don't let yourself be a door mat" and "stand up for yourself?"
:+
It helps me a lot to have most of my common English phrases in shortcuts.
I don't often drop short words just because I don't have to type very many of them, LOL.
I cannot tolerate the laziness of those phrases fixin and reckon!
It makes me scream. It just makes the people that say them sound unintelligent and lazy!!! AAARRRRGGGHHH!!!
Do you use expansions for common English words and phrases too? sm
I have read that something like 80% of sentences can be formed using the same 200 most commonly used words of the English language.
Think of common English phrases that you can add to your expansion software that you use quite often in MT reports such as "he has no significant" or "there are no significant" or "there was no significant," etc. :)
*This link leads to a listing of the 500 most commonly used words in the English language:
http://www.world-english.org/english500.htm
*And here is a listing of the top 100 English verbs:
http://www.world-english.org/100verbs.htm
Think I found it: ortho/neuro words & phrases by ..
Health Professions Institute. Found it on a book site. The 1994 edition got a good review. The 2000 edition got a bad one. Anyone?
Phrases appear in alphabetic order by short form.
You can type a few letters and see all phrases in the advisory or you can type a few letters and see a phrase, then a word, then a phrase. It all depends on the alpha order of your short forms so you are not going to get all phrases, then all words.
You can clear the option to sort by short form and use the frequency order instead, but I don't think that's what you want.
HPI General Surgery/GI Words and Phrases shows lower case also. nm
NM
All; heavy dependence on single words and phrases/standard sentences of all lengths. SM
Like San Francisco does, they can be used with any account/any dictator, which is extremely important. Just entering mostly whole reports and sections makes one dependent on that account/that employer and back to square one when it's time to take on a new account or even a new dictator.
I also have dozens and dozens of headers, bolded, unbolded, capped, lower case, etc., in various forms of each, like "Indications" "Indication," "Indications for Procedure," "Indications for Surgery," and so on and on and on.
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