Questions for Midnight shift MTs....sm

• Questions for Midnight shift MTs....sm - tia
  • I worked 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. - and slept til around 1:30ish in the afternoon
  • I guess you would need to ask the MTs at the company you work for. - How could we answer that otherwise?

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I've only seen the first one at the movies, but I'm not much of a movie or TV person.  More of a reader. Can't wait to get the book to add to the collection.  Started the collection with my son who has lost interest at 15.  He looks like Harry though.  He went to the playground one day when he was 12 (dark hair, little round glasses) and all of the little kids were screaming, "It's Harry Potter!  It's Harry Potter!" and running after him.  He said, "MOM, IT WAS AWFUL!"  He now has contact lenses and he put his magic wand away.

yet, but listen and see if this pans out to be the "phone call" Beth referred to in the interview with Charlie Croes.

I just recently went back to work in the office at a local hospital. We type in both Meditech and Cerner, depending on what you are typing, i.e. Medical Records reports versus Radiology.  We are currently typing blindly in Meditech, meaning we do not have access to our line counts and must depend on management to give us our totals.  In Cerner, we are able to run a line count report and print out a hard copy of our line counts at the end of the day.

We are finding that 800 lines in Cerner equals about 500 lines in Meditech.  We are not paid per line nor do we have an incentive plan, but we have a new HIM Director who would like to institute an incentive plan and the administrator over our department has laid down the law and decreed that all transcriptionists not making minimum in the department will be written up.  Problem is according to Meditech line totals that we have been given, that would be about half the department.

The transcription supervisor has taken our concerns to the new director who told the MT Supervisor to hold off on writing people and has taken home all the line counts from the last month and she is going over them with a fine tooth comb this weekend.

I am not a very trusting soul by nature, so I am doing a little research on my own.  I've been in this business for about 15 years.  I started out in a hospital and have worked for a few services at home and am now back in the hospital setting.  So I know a few things about line count and I consider myself to be pretty well informed on trends and technology in the industry.   I would like to walk into our next department meeting armed with as much knowledge as possible.  So I have come up with some questions that I would like some fellow MTs to answer, give opinions, and maybe even direct me to websites or individuals who could give me a better understanding of Meditech and Cerner.  Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible for an MT to have access to her line count in Meditech or is strictly a management function?  Any MTs that work in Meditech on this board, do you currently have access to your line counts and if so, how do you check them?  Is it an option on the main menu after you log into Meditech?


2. How is a line defined in Meditech?  (i.e. 65 cpl, with spaces, without spaces)


3. How is a line defined in Cerner?


4. What abbreviation Expanders work with both Meditech and Cerner?


5. Examples of incentive plans (if anyone would like to share that with me that would be great, if not I completely understand).


6. Measuring productivity by minutes of dictation versus typed lines.




1. What would be the minimum minutes required for an 8-hour day?


2. How would one structure an incentive program based on minutes?

I was thinking of presenting the idea that we keep track of productivity using minutes instead of lines since there is such a discrepancy in Meditech.  I also worry that if an incentive plan is put into place and we are still typing blind into Meditech, what's to keep management from shaving off a few lines here and there?

Feel free to email me or post here any responses.  Either is fine.  I really appreciate any input, comments, or just plain old supportive posts would be nice too! 

I don't want to appear ignorant but I have always worked M-F.  Now am getting ready to look for a new position and am curious if I work third shift Sunday thru Thursday, I guess that means 11 o'clock Saturday night to 7 Sunday morning or does it mean 11 o'clock Sunday night (which would actually be Monday morning)  Thanks

Employee;  afternoon and late night/early morning split shift.

I totally disagree with this study, for multiple reasons.  I agree with some of the posts, stating that it would depend upon if you are getting enough sleep, whether you work the graveyard shift or not.  People working regular shift often get only a couple of hours of sleep, because they are out at bars all night, drinking, etc.

However, I work the graveyard shift, usually 11 pm to 6 am.  I am working, while my husband is sleeping.  Right after work, I go to bed, and sleep anywhere between 10 to 12 hours.  Then, when my husband comes home, we have the whole evening together!

Also, do they take into consideration that many graveyard shift workers work in factory situations where they are exposed to lots of other things, like toxic chemicals, etc.?  I read about it in the paper, too, and it mentioned that the increase in the cancer effect of the graveyard shift workers began in the 1930's, with the "industrial" boom --- what about those effects on cancer, not the time of day you do it.

I also feel that I can produce more in the same time frame doing MT at nite, with less stress of all the other noises of the day, and not having the phone ringing off the hook!

It all depends on you.  I don't think there's a set rule book.  I have a major sleep "situation."  It isn't a problem because it's been this way all my life.  I never liked to sleep, and would still rather mow the lawn or just about anything besides sleep. Obviously the rest of the world thinks that's strange, but it's just how I got wired (pardon that pun!)...  Many people say they got "x" hours of sleep.  I look at it as whatever I got is what I got, if any.  But I know that's not the norm for most.

There have been times when I've fallen asleep typing, but very rarely.  There are also times when I stay up for 2 days straight, and still fight going to sleep.

Just give it some time and decide if you can do it.  It's good that we all have different time clocks embedded in our bodies!

Good luck!

With VR system I was using (example of bad VR I posted above) I used all the control shifts, control shift arrows, ALT backspace, control delete,  the highlighter, did not use foot pedal or mouse, played the audio in the background while editing. But with so many corrections to make these things are not much of a help. Did not notice much improvement in line count.  On a better VR program they can be.

Als the platform that I was using with this VR involved a lot of control this and that too, for headings and subheadings, and also a lot of control this and that to move around different pages to put in cc (required 5 or 6 Keystrokes to do that), assign work role, check demographics, etc.  

Like this: to make heading

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION had to use control N

then to make subheadings

HEENT: had to use control shift N.

Of course VR did not get all these headings correctly so had to reformat as well as correct the text.

Did like the list function though... no need to manually number.

I don't know about your situation, but my husband has learned to go to bed when he's done with work. He'll probably read the morning paper and have something to eat like a hamburger or leftover spaghetti.  Remember that breakfast is supper and supper is breakfast when you work 3rd shift. He has cereal when he gets up in the afternoon.

He used to stay up for 3 or 4 hours,  like he did when he got home from a day job (like we all do if we work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.).  He has learned that "sleep time" is essential when he is done his shift and when the kids are off at school.  He's usually up when they get home at 3:00, but sometimes he gets up at noon or he sleeps until 5:00.  He's learned to let his body tell him how much sleep he needs.

If he does stay up, he will nap for a few hours.  Sometimes he even naps from 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. before he goes in to work.  It works for him.  He's been doing it for almost 7 years and wouldn't trade if for the day shift.

The bedroom has blinds that will make the room very dark to keep out the light. He has one advantage though.  He's deaf without his hearing aids.  When he wants to sleep he takes them out. That way there is no "hush, daddy is trying to sleep."

Good luck.  I was thinking about doing 3rd shift myself until I realized that the reason my husband and I get along so good is because we work opposite shifts!  

Do you work on national holidays if they fall on Friday or Monday? Thanks in advance.

*this is a repost. don't know what happen with my other post.

found that each night shift person has to figure out for themselves what sleep pattern works best.  For some sleeping in the morning after finishing work is best, for others sleeping in the afternoon/evening before starting work bests suits them.   For me what worked best was when I was working from midnight to 8 a.m. I would log off at 8 a.m. and sleep  until noon, then would go back to bed between 8:30-9 p.m. and sleep about 3 hours.  Most of the time I didn't get sleepy during the night doing this pattern but if I did it would be around 4 a.m. and I would just log off and take about a 20-30 minute nap which would be enough to refresh me. 

Some of the best advice I can give you for sleeping during the daytime is to go to Target and in the girl's department they're currently selling some blindfolds, or you can go to Claire's boutique as I've seen them there.   I would have never survived sleeping during the day well without my Delta Airlines blindfolds that I had - they do a great job of tricking the body to thinking that it's night time when it's daylight outside.  

My blindfolds now reside on my brother-in-laws head at night as I'm no longer on nights and he is with his job - so he snoozes during the day with them on. 

Good luck to you!