Posts Tagged Dragon

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Dear Mary Pat: How Do I Get My Foot in the Door? (24 Things to Do to Break into Healthcare Management)

So you’ve been trying to become employed in healthcare, or you’ve tried to enter healthcare management, or you’re trying to move from one job in healthcare to another.  You’ve read my post about my search for a job in healthcare and have been soldiering on, but you’re just not getting anywhere.  You might have education, but no experience or you might have experience but no formal education.

Healthcare is no different from any other field.  It’s a hodgepodge of what you know and who you know.  What everyone is looking for is expertise and authority and that can’t always be demonstrated by a degree or years of experience.  A new buzz phrase is “What is your value proposition?” or “How will you pay for your salary and make me (doctor, practice, hospital, health plan) money besides?”

If you want to enter the field or climb the ladder in healthcare management, you need to demonstrate that you have something of value that someone wants.  Try some non-traditional ways of gaining expertise and demonstrating value, like the ones I list here.  Yes, each of these will take time in addition to your current job, but it has the potential to give you a hand up to your next job.  If you don’t currently have a job, you have lots of time to work on the list below, and when potential employers ask what you’ve been doing while unemployed, you have a great answer!

  1. Blog about the field you want to enter – learn about the field and write about it.
  2. Write about being in the middle of a transitional field and your experiences along the way – if you’re a compelling writer, I’ll publish it as a series on my blog!
  3. Create a site of resources for others that already do what you want to do.
  4. Interview others in the field you want to enter and publish the interviews.
  5. Ask people if you can shadow them for one day or a half day to understand what they do to see if you’re on the right track (who would say “no”? I wouldn’t.)
  6. If you haven’t used voice recognition, invest in a basic copy of Dragon and learn it inside and out.
  7. Learn how electronic health records (EHRs) work.  If you’ve never used one, gain experience by finding someone who has one and volunteer your time to write a user’s guide for them, or to use their user’s guide and critique it for them. Do that for as many different EHRs as you can find.
  8. Think creatively about jobs in a department you want to be in, just not in the job you want to be in – call temp agencies, computer schools, software companies, any healthcare entity going through a conversion, etc.
  9. Tell everyone (if you’re free to talk about it) what you’re looking for – you never know who might help you find it.
  10. Volunteer to do an informal project for someone in the field – some topic they need information about but never have the time to do.
  11. Join the American College of Medical Practice Executives (ACMPE) and pursue board certification and become a Fellow in the college.  These credentials are quickly becoming the standard in the field.
  12. Get a Google Health account and learn how to use it inside and out.
  13. Get a Microsoft Health Vault account and learn how to use it inside and out.
  14. Get accounts on any other personal health record (PHR) platform you can find.
  15. Publish case studies on common problems in other fields and how they were solved, and apply those solutions to healthcare problems.
  16. Put a chart on your resume showing each skill you have and how it transfers to healthcare and brings added value to your potential employer.
  17. If you don’t yet, get a Twitter account (free) and start conversations with others in the field.
  18. If you don’t yet, get a LinkedIn account (free) and join groups that are talking about the things you want to learn about (Twitter will give you more info and friends, LinkedIn will make you more business connections)
  19. If you aren’t already, sign up for websites that focus on what you are interested in, read them religiously and comment on their posts.
  20. If you don’t already, get your resume on visualcv.com (still free I think) Add any goodies you can to your visualcv that demonstrate you know your stuff – recommendations, videos, charts, white papers, etc.
  21. Find someone to mentor you who is well-positioned (locally, regionally and nationally.)
  22. Volunteer to do some pro bono work for your local professional group – your state MGMA, your state medical society, etc.
  23. Join Toastmasters and polish your “elevator speech” so you can effortlessly let others know who you are and where you’re heading.
  24. Let me know what you plan to do, and how I can help.

Best wishes,

Mary Pat

Posted in: A Career in Practice Management, Social Media

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Time Management: Jott Helps Me Translate My Thoughts Into Email

One of my secret weapons to save time and get things done efficiently is Jott. Jott Assistant is a simple way to translate my thoughts into mail using my phone.  When I think of something that I need to do, or an email I want to send to someone, I call Jott (I have it on speed dial) and record my message and it shows up in my email, or in someone else’s email at a time of my choosing.

For instance: I am driving to a clinic and suddenly remember I need the office supervisor to schedule a staff meeting next week.  I call Jott, say who it is I want to Jott, when I want the message to be sent, what the message it, and it is done.

Jott is not free, but based on the time it saves me, I think it is a very good value.  You can try it for free for a week and see if you like it, but, like most applications, it does take a while to really explore all the ways you can use it.  Jott says:

Jott turns your voicemail messages into text and delivers them as text messages and emails that are actually useful. You can forward and reply to them, screen calls when you’re in meetings, set call-back reminders and more! Set-up only takes a few minutes and Jott works with most major US carriers.

Interestingly,  as recently reported by Inga on HIStalkPractice, Nuance (owner of Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition programs) just acquired Jott:

a voice-to-text transcription application aimed at mobile users to create notes, use e-mail tools, and update application databases. While general cell phone users are its target audience, there certainly are healthcare possibilities there (nurses calling in vital signs to the EMR, maybe, or doing progress notes by cell phone).

Jott will interface (usually called a “mashup”) with the following tools and applications, allowing you to post to your favorite web services with your voice (Twitter, Facebook, Remember The Milk, Quicken) and listen to your RSS feed updates on the go (Yahoo, New York Times, The Huffington Post, Major League Baseball, CNet.)

Photo credit: © Theodor38 | Dreamstime.com

Posted in: Innovation

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Nuance (Dragon) Comments on Blocking the Consumer Edition from EMR Integration

©Lidian Neeleman/Dreamstime.com

©Lidian Neeleman/Dreamstime.com

My August 20th post (read it here) noted that Dragon voice recognition software has been quietly gaining acceptance as a mainstream solution to hefty transcription costs and EMR integration. 10% of the healthcare providers in the United States are currently using Dragon Medical.

Yesterday, HISTalk noted that:

At least one doc is unhappy that Nuance has blocked the use of Dragon Naturally Speaking with EMRs in Version 10. Nuance states “…we found that some large hospitals were using the consumer editions of Dragon and not getting the accuracy, quality and manageability that would be achieved when using Dragon Medical.”

Nuance responded on HISTalk via comment, saying in part:

“Nuance has made a significant investment in building, tuning and distributing Dragon Medical for exclusive use by the health care industry. The integration and engineering required to deliver the ease-of-use of Dragon Medical with all major EMR vendors, including Allscripts„¢, Epic, Misys®, GE® Healthcare, NextGen®, Siemens, eClinicalWorks, Meditech, McKesson®, Cerner and Eclipsys®, requires a Herculean effort, comprising thousands of man hours in developing and testing. As one would expect, there is a premium associated with the delivery of this capability and the resources devoted to further hone and evolve the product to meet the specific needs of the medical end user.”

Nuance also points to the Microsoft model of charging differently for enterprise/professional software and consumer software offerings.

I don’t dispute a vendor’s right to charge accordingly for a product that has taken a lot of R & D to bring to the market, but like everything else that has a place in the medical world, it will cost much more based on the healthcare application. A set of plastic drawers for home costs $9.99 at your local store and lists for $99.99 in a medical catalog.

Posted in: Electronic Medical Records, Innovation

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Who’s Using Voice Recognition? 70,000 Healthcare Providers, That’s Who

©Thomas Lammeyer/Dreamstime.com

©Thomas Lammeyer/Dreamstime.com

Five years ago I worked for a physician who used Dragon to dictate his office notes. He put in the time to teach Dragon his voice and successfully dictated, edited, and printed his own notes. He eliminated all transcription costs, and was a favorite of the staff as no one ever had to scramble to find his notes. Not surprisingly, he was my physician IT Champion.

For every physician who was able to make it with Dragon five years ago, there were probably ten who didn’t tough it out. Today there are 70,000 healthcare providers using Dragon, which is an estimated 10% of the total healthcare provider population. What’s the big motivator? One, saving money, which becomes more important every year as there become fewer places to cut costs. Two, direct input into the EMR, which saves time and closes the loop on electronic management of physician assessment and recommendations.


Posted in: Electronic Medical Records, Innovation

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