Without exception, top producers speak wistfully of the lost opportunity of learning to use their productivity tools while they were first learning to transcribe. "If only I'd had this when I first started . . ." they say, and insist that the ultimate system would teach the tools along with the transcription.

One of the most important productivity tools professional MT's use is a software program called an expander. An expander is like a sophisticated macro program. (If you don't know what that is, either, don't worry: we'll explain.)

In medical language the terms, as well as a multitude of phrases, are standard. GERD is always GERD. Cardiovascular, gastroenterology, peritonitis, etc. Temperature is (x)xx.x, blood pressure is xxx/(x)xx, "the patient is," "the patient complains of," - literally millions of terms, words and phrases are standardized and used repeatedly in medical reports. How many times have you seen the phrase, "The patient is a well-developed male," or "The patient is an elderly female?"

An expander allows you to type, for example, "tpef" instead of the sentence, "The patient is an elderly female." While we are using simple illustrations, expanders can contain entire paragraphs of standard dictation that can be typed with only a few keystrokes.

Doctors form dictation habits. Any given doctor, and particularly specialists, will use the same phrases repeatedly. MT's who transcribe the same docs over a period of time amuse themselves by speaking along with the physician as they play back his/her dictation.

It's great to have fun, but it's even more fun to make great money. If those MT's capitalized on their doctors' habits by utilizing expander software, they could double or even triple their productivity and their income, while actually decreasing their work hours! (Higher productivity attracts higher pay per line.)

Incredibly, you are learning more about productivity right now than many experienced medical transcriptionists know!

Now, an expander is a software program that is capable of expanding a few keystrokes into a word, sentence, paragraph or even an entire page. However, expanders have to be told what to expand your keystrokes to.

Building a library of keys isn't easy. You'll realize why if you think about it for a minute. Today, while working on a radiology report, you program your expander to recognize "ap" as "anteroposterior." Perfectly logical, easy to remember. Three months later, you've forgotten you ever did that and you add a key for "alkaline phosphatase." Oops!

A sophisticated library normally requires careful planning and years to build.

The Productivity Module has solved these problems for you. It comes ready to use with a library of thousands of logically-formatted keys for terms, phrases, ages, temperatures, headers, dates, numbers, sutures, procedures, equipment, and more. After you have become proficient with it, you can purchase additional libraries as you need them.

You can have multiple glossaries running at one time, so you no longer have to worry about using the same key for more than one designation. If you use "ap" to expand anteroposterior in your radiology glossary, you can use it for something else in a different glossary, with no conflicts or confusion!

One of the most valuable features of The Productivity Module is that it will analyze reports you have transcribed and automatically generate glossaries for you based on those reports. For example, you can have a glossary named "Dr. Williams," that contains the terms, phrases, medications, etc., that Dr. Williams tends to use. And you can create this glossary without ever manually adding a key - The Productivity Module will analyze the reports you've transcribed for Dr. Williams and generate the glossary for you! In addition, every report you transcribe for Dr. Williams can be analyzed to further expand and optimize his glossary.

The Productivity Module will even help when you can't quite understand what the physician said. As you type the portion you can hear, the advisory window will provide logical continuations of the sentence based on what you've typed. In many cases, you won't have to stop and back up the transcriber to listen again, because one of the choices in the advisory will be obviously correct. Fewer errors, less wasted time, higher productivity, more earnings.

It's easy to learn the keys as you're learning to transcribe. A window at the bottom of your word processing program teaches you the keys as you type. As you become increasingly experienced, you'll reach a point where you are no longer typing, but keying, and that is when your productivity and earnings will soar. Some MT's have productivity levels of 600 lines per hour. Pull out your calculator and figure that at 18 cents per line! Not bad for working 6 hours a day out of your spare bedroom.