This week started out with my phone interview for my externship that I am applying for in the spring. It lasted about 10 or 15 minutes and was relatively casual so I'm hoping that's a good sign. There are three other classmates applying for this position and we all had very similar interviews, therefore we are hoping that we all will be asked to ...

During much of my time in the medical transcription industry, I've been a technical troubleshooter. I've always been a technology wonk, all the way back to the days of the original Color Computer from Radio Shack, which competed against the Commodore 64 back in the early 1980s. The ''CoCo,'' as it was known, had a whopping 64 KB--yes, KB, not ...

If my grandmother, who I call Nanny J, was confronted with an electronic check-in system in her doctor's office, she most definitely wouldn't approve. This is the woman who actually laughed out loud when I suggested that, instead of snail mailing her a recipe for vegetarian lasagna, I e-mail it. She also flat out refuses to use the handy self ...

Summer is over and in what seems like a blink of an eye we have all been thrusted back into classes, full force. We've only been back for 2 weeks and I am already overwhelmed. I have to start soon on my 20 hour project, write the proposal for my 90 hour project, find an internship for our clinical next semester, and still try to balance my classes ...

It's that time again. For the last 8 years, at the end of July, I've reminded you that you've got to be in it to win it. And this year is no exception. It's time to enter your department in the 2008 HIM Team of the Year contest. If you're chosen by our panel of judges to be the 2008 HIM Team of the Year, you'll be treated to a professional photo ...

Over the past few years I've had the opportunity to speak to MT groups across the country and write professional journal articles on the realities of speech recognition editing. Since the vast majority of my live audiences are women, I like to break the ice by asking the question, ''What's the one thing that women generally do far better than ...

The day I started thinking of myself as a ''real'' MT was not the day I graduated from school (Seminole Community College's MT program); not when I started working as a part-time MT for a couple of orthopedic surgeons (one with a rather dramatic speech impediment that worsened as his work day grew longer, a subject for a blog entry all its own); ...

The news is not really shocking to HIM professionals who've seen EHR adoption up close and personal, especially if those HIM professionals had any dealings with the CFO while working toward implementing an electronic record. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study on the adoption of EHRs by ambulatory physicians. Only 4 percent ...

Still struggling to find a way to make my coursework doable on my Mac with the least contortions possible, I’ve spent the last week indulging my inner geek and trying on different software for size, and I have to say I’m enjoying it immensely. My Computers In Healthcare course has presented more than a few challenges, not the least of which is ...

I would like to use this first entry in order to introduce myself and let everyone get a feel of what I'm about.  First, my name is Travis Bankhead and I am a HIM student at the University of Pittsburgh in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.  I am currently in the summer session of classes, which is the transition between ...