Stenograph machine increase productivity to 500 plus lines per hour
Posted By: Helen Rolfe on 2006-03-17
In Reply to: I beg to differ - Romey
I have been using the stenomachine for a year now after I mastered the keyboard. I have built my dictionary to include every word/phrase that I use to transcribe. It is very easy to learn the keyboard, the challenge is developing speed. Any questions, please respond at wordwarrier1@yahoo.com. PS: I love it.
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Stenograph machine increase productivity to 500 plus lines per hour
I have been using the stenomachine for a year now after I mastered the keyboard. I have built my dictionary to include every word/phrase that I use to transcribe. It is very easy to learn the keyboard, the challenge is developing speed. Any questions, please respond at wordwarrier1yahoo.com. PS: I love it.
Stenograph Machine/Transcribing
I was in court reporting school for 3 years. I got to over 200 words per minute on the stenograph machine. The problem with using it for transcription is that it still has to be transcribed into typewriting. The system the machine uses is a machine ShortHand - combinations of letters form different letters of the alphabet. You do not produce readable text as we know it in typing on a stenograph machine.
This would be causing more work, not solving a problem. It is used to transcribe spoken words in a courtroom or medical conference, etc., as a tool only. You still must transcribe the stenograph Keystrokes into a typewritten, readable form that could be a permanent medical record or legal document.
My name (Gloria) in stenograph is a classic example of what the phonics system looks like. Gloria is a combination of these letters:
TKPWHR is the sound "GL";
O is the "O"
R on the right side of the keyboard is "R"
Then a second keystroke would be KWA for the sound "YA."
My name would read like this on the printout from Stenograph:
TKPWHR O R
K W A
The letters print out in the same location and it is based on phonic sounds. Thus, it still has to be transcribed into readable typewritten English to be understandable.
Hope this helps. I dedicated myself to this system for 3 years of hard learning in College and then burned out in the end right after passing the Georgia Court Reporting exam.
How to increase productivity
The more targeted your glossaries are, the faster you get to your words and phrases. Are you using doctor- or specialty-specific glossaries combined with your own base glossary?
Are you concentrating on phrases rather than on words? The big keystroke savings kick in when you concentrate on the phrases your doctors say all the time.
More about productivity at the link below. I hope it will give you some quick tips.
Marianne
well, the more you do ops, the more you'll increase productivity
nm
Productivity per hour confuses me...? sm
Companies always ask about my 'lines per hour'. What the heck is average? I type 90 wpm. Took a normal report once, counted the lines, did all the calculations with time and what-not to try and come up with a 'per hour' quota but I came up with 800+ or something and that seems crazy. Unless that sounds possible, anyone know the typical average for lines per hour?
Depends on the pay and account. My lowest average is $15.52 an hour (roughly 182.6 lines an hour) w
;'
1850 lines per 8 hour shift. 15.00 hour - no real requirement
x
At 200 lines a day for 6 cents, you are making $1.20 a day or 0.15 hour for an 8 hour day!!!--cm
Did you mean 2,000? Even then you would only be making $1.50 if you work 8 hours a day.
I did 400 lines in an hour once sm
working for HS and was put on an account for just a while. This was a surgery center with colonoscopies and ophthalmologic procedures. There were normals out the *&#)@ and 400 an hour was very easy. I ended up quiting HS due to the fact they took that account and gave it to a girl that had been caught cherrypicking.. The work was "sporadic" and later found out why...she was taking the best dictators with the most canned text and grabbing them before anyone else.
So, it can be done, but I think only with extensive use of normals and expanders.
lines per hour
what is the average amt of lines per hour that MTs type, approx?
Are you really only getting 100 lines an hour?
That's not good. I think I'd rather go to McDonald's and work then instead of sitting at home for that or less. I couldn't survive on that. Sorry for you.
100 lines at .07 is $7.00 an hour, not $14 - nm
x
lines an hour
I would say that a good average to shoot for an hour would be 200-250. 140 would be on the low average side.
MORE LINES PER HOUR.
Okay, I have a doctors account and he is an ESL, but I have been been on his account for a few month and have no problem understanding him. His files are all usually fairly short 1-2 minutes, and I have lots of normals for him. I just cant seem to pull in many lines per hour on him. I feel like I zoom through them, but I am always amazed to see what I am pulling for lines after an hours work. Do you think my problem could be the short files? Is it easier to pull in more lines on longer dictations, since you dont have to keep switching to the next dictation? He does talk SLOW as well.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer.
lines per hour
Evidently you are only averaging about 100 lines per hour, if I can't do 300 lines per hour it isn't worth my time. Especially if you are using templates, expanders, etc. you need to up towards 200 to 300 llines per hour. So that is not a fast typist to me.
LINES PER HOUR
Most companies are looking for people who do 1200 lines per 8-hour shift, which is the equivalent of 150 lines per hour. A line is usually equal to 65 characters, therefore 150 lines is equal to 9750 characters.
lines per hour
anybody work for a company that does not allow you to count your own lines?
lines/hour
On a repetitive account I had in the past for two years, I was able to type 175 lines per hour, was simple account where I knew what the doctors were going to say before they said and had it typed before they said it....was 65 characters including spaces..but, all good things come to an end, and now am on an account where no matter what, I cannot get more than 125 lines per hour, it also happens to be one that is 70 characters per line with spaces which does not help. Would have to agree withl the other responses on this one...lots of depending factors involved.
Lines Per Hour
I hope someone can help me on this one. I have a neighbor whom I've known for about a year and she has been doing transcription for about 5 years--I've been doing it for 8. I can type about 95 wpm and average about 350 lph. However, she says that she is able to do about 600-800 lph with the help of her expansion software (no voice recognition). I don't want to insult her intelligence by asking to see her paycheck, but is this high of a line count even possible??
She and I both work for small transcription companies (not the same ones), so we both have the advantage of having our own accounts that we share with no one else (same dictators all day, every day). Because of this, I know that we do share the ability to get higher line counts than most. (And no voice recognition.)
I have not yet installed my expansion software that I have had for months, so I've only been using what is built into Microsoft Word. My neighbor was trying to convince me how important it is that I start using one immediately. I agree that I need to start using it, but I just find it really hard to believe that she can hit anywhere near 800 lines per hour!
Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Is it possible? Should I now set my goals a little higher??
LINES PER HOUR
Is she using word or typing into hospital software? I do have a radiology account which counts even blank lines, so it is possible for me to get upwards of 600 lph on this account (with my own Expanders - of which, I have many). I also type in word on another account (get paid report) but dont think I could ever do more than 3 or 400 lph. I have 30+ years in the business.
Lines per hour
I am really confused that if there are so many transcriptionists out there doing this many lines (I average about 250 lph and have been doing this a long time) why most companies only require 1200 a day, they could hire all of you doing 400-800 lph and have to pay a lot less people. Are there really that many transcribing the high lph?
Lines per hour
I transcribe using eScription. I do an average of 600 lines editing an hour and 350 lines of actual transcription an hour. I get paid separately for lines edited and for lines transcribed. Using different VR platforms results in lots of variables as one can imagine. I think it also depends on how one accepts change - not only the individual Transcriptionist but also management in relaxing their style guide issues to conform to eScription's.
700 lines per hour...
Someone told me today that she could do 700 lph. Has anyone ever done this? I'm curious.
lines per hour
Our company is looking at a new system. Right now I do editing and actual transcribing. We have a very very old speech recognition system, so I know with the update, my lines will improve, but the company selling told the place I work that we should be up to 4000 lines per day per transcriptionist. I don't think I can even read fast enough for that if it was all editing! Are the new speech recognition programs that much better or am I that stupid! Or...is the company doing a hard sell that is not realistic? Thanks for any input.
530+ lines per hour. Is this possible?
So I was reading the MT forum at Indeed and came across this post. The person claims 6 of his/her MTs routinely transcribe 4300+ lines per day. Assuming an 8-hour day, this would be 537 lph. Is that even possible doing straight transcription? I tend to agree with the other posters on that forum that that has to be a lie or gross exaggeration, but just curious what everyone here thought. What is the highest line count one could hope for with straight transcription (not VR). I have been aiming for 300 lph, but now wondering if it is possible to do more eventually.
That's 352 lines per hour (SM)
If the penny per line additional is added to ALL lines typed, not just the portion over the bonus level.
And no, the most I've ever typed is about 300 LPH, but not consistently. 250 LPH back in the old days when I think I was getting paid for demographics, headers and footers. These days it's more like 200 LPH on a good night.
500-600 lines per hour
Has anyone ever done 500-600 lines per hour. I worked at a company and there were a couple of girls who claimed they did 500-600 lines per hour using the ShortHand 8 program. I have the Shorthand 8 program but I still can't do that. The company was always promoting these girls and the Shorthand 8 program and they made all the regular MTs feel like crap.
Oh, or even lines per hour?
NM
Lines per hour - I just do NOT get these figures. PLEASE tell me how you hit these #s
Okay. I have been doing this for 25 years, and am a CMT. I rarely have to reference anything - even meds. If I do, I can find my answer in 30 seconds max. I type on a super platform, have a great expander and spell check, and type really, really fast - averaging 120 wpm last time I tested. I have a great account, though I use NO normals or standards. I simply cannot - accounts are verbatim to the word, and nothing is repeat dictation. Even Op reports, which are my specialty, all MUST be typed from scratch. I average 200 lines per hour - maybe 250 at best. I am great at this except obviously not making 1000 lines in 3 hours. There must be some detail that you guys are leaving out, which, if it makes me feel like mud, must really dash the hopes of those new to the profession. Is it that you all use normals or standards or copy and paste your own stuff to boost up those line counts? Otherwise, how on earth do you hit those numbers? I'm asking sincerely, cause I used to be SO happy hitting 1200 lines after a 6 to 7 hour shift, but now I feel like a total failure. I'd rather do this in 3 hours, or I'd rather hit 2000 in the 6 hours. Is it the macros and standards and normals and all? I think that MUST be the key, in which case I won't feel bad, because my account simply won't allow that! Thanks for any tips!
figure your lines per hour
You need to figure out how many lines per hour you are doing now or able to do. As poster below says, 250 lines per hour times .08 cents per line equals 20$ an hour. I don't know if that is realistic for radiology reports or not (250 lines per hour). Aren't most of them short? You don't get paid for the time it takes to download, upload, etc. Also DQS does not pay for demo info, footers, headers and seems like that would be a big cut if you work on a lot of short reports. So it would depend on if they paid for that stuff or not.
To figure how many lines you do currently, copy and paste a typical report (or several reports) into Word and go to tools and do a character count. You need to figure out if your Word program is counting spaces or not. Take a short report and manually count characters AND spaces. Then copy into Word and see what the count is there. If the count is way short of your manual count, your Word program is only counting characters not spaces. If so, to figure characters AND spaces, take your word count and add 22% by calculator and that would be the total character and space count. (I have tried this and it always comes out perfectly to the line count I receive from MQ and to my manual count.)
Now take your total characters and spaces, divide by 65 (the length of a 'line') and you have how many lines are in the report. If you do this with several reports, and you know about how many reports you do in a day, you can get a pretty good idea of how many lines per hour you are doing.
Are you pulling out your hair yet? It is really pretty easy to figure, but hard to explain in a note. Sorry.
P.S. Isn't 8 cpl a little low? I do clinic notes as a newbie and receive 7 cpl. seems like you could do better than 8 cpl.
platform and lines per hour
I'm working on a Windows-based Meditech platform and routinely get 450-500 lines an hour using Shorthand, and then on two other Windows-based platforms (Misys and Radplus) I get about 400-450 lines per hour.
how many lines per hour/day/week do you do?? NM
???
I average 300 lines per hour
for acute care, mostly OP notes, 65/char line, which would be 19,500 characters per hour.
lines per minute/hour?
I'm typing approximately 250 lines an hour of transcription. I'm not sure about dictation though. I am curious how much the going rate for a Transcriptionist by the line is these days. If anybody could help with this info, please do so!
600 lines per hour with Escription
How do you do that? Do you have the same docs each time that say the same thing every time? I have been using this for a year and the best I can do is 287 lph.
Most of the ads tell you this, but minimum is usually 150 lines per hour. nm
s
How many lines per hour do you type? (sm)
I am curious how many lines per hour my fellow transcriptionists are able to accomplish? I used to be able to do 250-300 or so per hour, but the last company I worked for I could never break 200.
lines/hour standards (sm)
What would you say is the "industry standard" for line counts in an 8-hour work day? Where do some of the companies want you to be? 150 lines per hour? 200 lines per hour? More? Less?
Just curious since I've been out of the loop for a while. Thanks.
You would have to do a lot of lines per hour at that rate. sm
I don't think that is a living wage, no matter how fast you can transcribe. And if you transcribe more than 300 lph you should be making more per line.
So you consistently do 520 lines an hour??
nm
Editing - lines per hour
Thank you for your responses.
Eva - to clarify on the editing, we currently pay our transcriptionists per line on the entire batch of files they edit (not VR files) transcribed by our ICs. Some ICs are on "blanks only" status as we are confident that their content is correct and only need help with the blanks. Some of our ICs are on "full read" status to pick up random grammatical errors or other quirky things they ICs miss. And our trainees, of course, are on "full listen, full read" status. I think this would be the status most in line with VR files as we know there are way too many inaccuracies with VR at this point.
I personally have used VR to try to get a feel for the challenges we are going to be facing and have trained the system rather minimally using the Medical version of Dragon. I have found it to be probably 95% accurate with the exception of patient names and a few words. However, I know I have trained it more extensively than most of our doctors are going to.
I appreciate your input.
I am still curious, however, if most ICs that do editing for transcribed work (not VR) are being paid for entire batches of files, or just on individual files they edit or fill in blanks for, and am still looking for averages for edited lines per hour. Any ideas?
Lines per hour editing
Thank you! That's exactly what I'm looking for. Actually that's right in line with what I was thinking - 500-600 lines per hour.
We pay our editors hourly but are looking at finding a per line rate that is comparable to an average hourly rate of $15-18 per hour. At 0.03 per line, that would be about right.
Think you are thinking lines per hour. I
am normally in the 250-300 range per hour.
1000 lines per hour?
Has someone been fibbing to you? Realistic is 400-500, high might be 600 or so. Never got 1000 in the years I have been doing it.
Some Thoughts on Lines Per Hour
Back in the old days....
Back when dictation came in on cassette tapes....
Those tapes would be 30 minutes per side and usually full on both sides.
My mentor back then was my first boss (bless her heart - I have often wanted to find her again to thank her for her tireless and patient mentoring of a complete newbie!). She told me once that a good Transcriptionist should be able to type 1/2 to 1/3 the number of minutes on the tapes per hour. In other words, 20-30 minutes of dictation per hour.
Now remember that this was back in the days of IBM Selectric typewriters with little "odometers" on them to keep track of how many lines we had typed.
Anyway, even with the latest and greatest technology, it will ALWAYS be physically impossible to type faster than a dictator can talk, with one caveat - we can speed up the dictation slightly with speed control.
So when somebody comes along in an inter-office email claiming that the "best" transcriptionists in the company have posted average speeds of 644 lines per hour (or was it 446? LOL), well....
You know what I think?
BAH! Not a chance!
Lines an hour to words a minute
Hello!
Does anyone know how to calculate words per minute from lines per hour? I'm curious to know how many words per minute I'm actually typing (even though it is with a word expander). Currently, I'm only averaging 140 lines per hour--is that good?
Would appreciate your help!
Why do you say $20/hr? I work for a national, and at 11 cpl, 300 lines per hour, sm
that's $33/hour. I'm not driving a Lexus or anything, but I'm comfortable. Generally speaking, find a mid-sized national, big enough to have enough work for you all of the time, yet small enough to care and realize that quality work deserves quality pay.
They are out there. Good luck!
What is the average lines per hour for radiology?
A lot of companies are now paying per line now rather than by report or per page. I just wondered if it differed from other transcription as I do both but do not have a line counter for radiology in the system I type into.
I average 600 lines an hour on ES - editing, sm
transcribing 400 lph.
I have been working this platform for about 3 years now.
Using the shortcut keys and not the mouse helps tremendously in an awesome line count average.
Hope this information helps.
my company 127 lines/hour is minimum
nm
Well, counted my lines for first hour and I made
602 at 4 cents = $24.00 for the hour. Not bad, huh?
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