Wednesday, March 3, 2010

How Transcription Voice Recognition Software Assists Hospitals

Surely, youve been to a hospital, and youve seen and understand how frantic people can be there. Doctors and nurses could have hundreds of patients coming in and out of the facility every day. Some of them have very serious illnesses that need constant attention and care.

Simply put, they dont have the time for routine tasks, such as updating the patients reports. However, they are still essential to ensure that they can provide the right diagnosis for an ailment, suggest the best medical solution, or use the reports for future reference.

Thats where they need the assistance of medical transcriptionists. These professionals can work alone or in companies. Either way, their main job is to, well, transcribe. Doctors have the option to speak through the phone or send audio files to transcriptionists, which would then be transformed into texts, complete with headings, format, and other nuances that may be specified by the medical transcription company or by the health care provider.

Needless to say, these reports have to be in promptly. Otherwise, they will be useless. Moreover, a life could be dependent on it. Health care providers therefore should try thinking using transcription voice recognition software to help them out.

A transcription voice recognition program such as Infraware is known to reduce costs. For one, the software is very easy to use. It allows a smaller learning curve for both the author and the transcriptionist. Usually, training time doesnt go beyond an hour.

Moreover, theres no more need to make use of long-distance phone numbers when you want to dictate the words. You will be given your own local phone number, the fees of which are much cheaper than the former.

Infrawares software is also constantly upgraded, especially if there are new developments that have been invented or discovered. The good news is that the updates or upgrades on the software wont cost you a single cent. You will receive them for as long as you need the software.

However, the most interesting part of the voice recognition program will definitely be the back-end speech recognition tool, which is aptly called FirstDraft.

FirstDraft works by identifying the places where punctuations, capitalizations, and sentence boundaries are. While you dictate the words, their artificial intelligence will try to make their best guess. The tool is so powerful that it can also help create bullet lists as well as headings.

The crudely edited document will be moved to a template and be synchronized with the audio playback. This way, the transcriptionist can immediately spot and make corrections on the editions.

This proved to be highly beneficial to both parties. Transcriptionists can increase their productivity time, since they dont need to spend a lot of time editing the document. On the other hand, health care facilities can expect faster turnaround times for reports.

Hospitals can help improve the flow of their system by employing transcription voice recognition programs such as Infraware. It can also boost profits by cutting unnecessary expenses such as acquisition of more software.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Increase Your Organic Traffic by Transcribing Podcasts

Increase Your Organic Traffic by Transcribing Podcasts By: Ajay Prasad
Copyright (c) 2009 Ajay Prasad
Organic traffic is the web based traffic which you are naturally able to attract to your site without using any short cuts or paid submissions for the promotion of a website. This traffic is unpaid listing at search engine or directories.
One method to increase the organic traffic is having as much unique content on your site as possible. Using keywords to write a powerful content gives an edge to your site. These keywords attract search engines to your site just as the bees are attracted to nectar.
Another unique method may be transcription of Pod casts as most of the search engines do not index your audio file but they do index quality rich text. A pod cast is an audio or video made available via web syndication. It can be a radio record or video for mobile downloading. Pod casting takes name from iPod, which is an immensely popular audio player by Apple computer, and broadcasting. Without the transcribed version, your pod casts may remain invisible to all except to those dedicated Internet users or to those who have already heard about it.
One may argue about the usability of the transcription when the audio or video is already available. But that is the whole point. In the video or audio if you have any unique content that will increase SEO. Some of the visitors do not bother to open the video, they rather read the content. Having a transcription of the video will serve two purposes. First it will convey what the same thing what the video wanted to convey and thus fulfill the purpose of the visitor. Secondly, if you have a transcribed version of the video or audio on a similar subject posted on another website the visitor will prefer your site!
Some people have difficulty in understanding the accent or pronunciation while others do not want to put in so much effort to listen as listening requires more concentration. And for the vision or hearing impaired people transcribed form of video/audio is no less than a boon.
There are some people who want to use the content of the video for further research or reference and they will automatically avoid your listing if you do not have the transcribed version. Some like to screen the text before downloading the pod cast. Lastly, for that category of people who like to listen and read simultaneously, the transcribed version along with the audio is found useful.
Then there is the question of cost-effectiveness. The transcription cost of pod casts can be reduced drastically by appropriate hiring and outsourcing. It should also be remembered that the organic traffic is natural one, so the amount spend on listing can be diverted to Transcription. In order to make your pod casts visible, for fun, profit and SEO, you must get your pod casts transcribed.
However, transcription of pod casts especially the audios is a difficult task and generally remains inaccurate. It is expensive and time consuming. With the help of correct transcribing partners, these problems can be reduced drastically who give the transcribed version in only three working days.
About the Author

Ajay Prasad is the President of GMR Transcription Inc., an Orange County, California based Transcription Company. GMR Transcription has been providing accurate and affordable transcription services of all types over the years. GMR Transcription guarantees a 98% accuracy on clear audios. Podcast Transcription takes your podcasts beyond the realm of just audio into world of letters and reaches a much wider audience. Get your podcast transcribed today!
(ArticlesBase SC #1118071)
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/ - Increase Your Organic Traffic by Transcribing Podcasts

Monday, March 1, 2010

Finding Affordable Transcription for Research Interviews

If you've conducted some research including one-to-one interviews, and then realised how much work is involved in transcribing them, you'll probably be looking for an affordable transcription service. There are many transcription services available but sometimes an affordable transcription service can seem hard to find. Transcription is not cheap, because it is a lot more involved than copy typing, but that doesn't mean you can't find affordable transcription, and what's more, by providing good quality recordings you can make the transcription more affordable, as it will take less time to complete.
You could do the transcription yourself, but if you are not a fast touch-typist and do not have specialist transcription equipment then it will take you a very long time. I have had clients come to me saying they started the work themselves and it was taking them 20 hours to produce a transcript of a 1-hour recording. That's why they ended up using a transcription service!
The most important thing to remember is that it's just not possible to type as fast as you speak. Even an experienced transcriptionist will be able to average four times as long for a good, clear one-to-one interview - so an hour of recording will take an average of four hours to transcribe. ( Industry standards obtained from the Industry Production Standards Guide (I998), published by OBC, Columbus, OH, USA) Transcriptionists also have to make sense of what's being said, punctuate the speech correctly and use the right homophones (words like there/their/they're that sound the same but are spelt differently.)
So how can you make sure that your transcript is clear, in order to get an affordable transcription price? Basically, the easier you make the transcription for the transcriptionist, the more likely they are to be able to give you an affordable transcription quote.
First of all, use the best transcription equipment you can afford, and make sure it's fit for purpose. This means that for interviews you should have a recorded with an external microphone rather than one built into the recorder, which is only designed to pick up one voice dictating. For focus groups you should have several microphones so that all participants are close to a mike, and for conferences the speakers should have good microphones and there should also be people in the audience with 'roving' microphones to take around to any audience members wanting to ask a question.
More and more transcriptionists are only taking on digital work now, rather than tapes, so to give yourself the broadest base to chose from you might want to consider using a digital recording method. These are also usually better quality.
Next, you should prepare well before each interview. Make sure that, if at all possible you have arranged a quiet meeting room, as background noise will dramatically increase the time taken to transcribe the recording, as the transcriptionist may have to listen to sections several times in order to capture the interview speech. It is helpful to spell out your interviewee's name at the beginning of the tape, before starting the interview, and speak out any information you would like on the transcript header e.g. the date, the job title of your interviewee etc.
During the interview, unless you need to interrupt in order to take back control of the interview, try not to speak over your interviewee. Often in a normal conversation we say 'yeah, yeah, yeah' or 'right' or 'OK' more to indicate we're listening than for any other reason. Every time you say that you are likely to be obscuring a much more important word or group of words spoken by your interviewee.
After the interview, it is enormously helpful if you can include a list of key words for the transcriptionist. Although we're happy to go on a 'Google hunt', searching the internet to find out how to spell technical terms, names of drugs, names of organisations etc., if you can provide this info in advance it certainly saves time, and saving time saves you money, again reaching toward that goal of an affordable transcription price. Technical work will always be more expensive than non-technical, but providing a 'crib sheet' of key words should reduce the cost.
Most transcriptionists work in a standard format, whether that be tabular, tabbed, interviews shown as initials or full names etc. Again most are happy to work to your specifications, but the standard format might well be cheaper, so think carefully about whether you need something different or not. Find out what the standard format is in advance if it concerns you, and you may be able to adapt it to your needs. If, for instance, it's essential that you have speakers in different fonts or different colours, this will add to the price. It might be more cost-effective for you to put this in when the basic transcript is returned to you!
Finally, give some serious thought to whether or not you need a verbatim transcription. Verbatim transcription includes every repeated word, every 'um' and 'erm', all those 'filler' phrases like 'you know' and 'know what I mean' that may be repeated a hundred times in one interview, and can also include pauses, coughs, throat clearing etc. if required. Needless to say, this takes longer. If the transcriptionist can filter out all this stuff the transcript is quicker. In my company the cheapest level is what we call 'intelligent verbatim' which cuts out all these fillers but leaves the rest exactly as it's spoken. Different transcriptionists work this differently though, so always check when you're phoning for your quote. Here are some brief examples. Somewhat more expensive is edited, which corrects the grammar and any mispronounced words as well as knocking out all the fillers.
Verbatim: Erm ... well, I dunno really, know what I mean? I mean, you know, when I asked them what Mary's, er, um, condish, condit, condition was, they said like erm 'I'm afraid we can't, erm, tell you that, Mrs. Smith, 'cause you ain't a relative.'
Intelligent Verbatim: Well, I dunno really. I mean when I asked them what Mary's condition was they said 'I'm afraid we can't tell you that, Mrs Smith, 'cause you ain't a relative.'
Edited: Well I don't know really. I mean when I asked them what Mary's condition was they said 'I'm afraid we can't tell you that, Mrs Smith, because you are not a relative.'
You can see that a whole extra line of typing is required for the verbatim work in just those few short sentences.
There are occasions when verbatim is required - depending on your topic it might be required for legal reasons, or you might be studying the language. But if you really don't need it, don't end up paying for it!
There are many excellent reasons for interviewing groups of people, but don't do this in order to try to reduce the transcription cost! It takes much longer to transcribe a group of more than two or three people (including the moderator/interviewer) because of the time taken to distinguish the different voices and the fact that people will inevitably talk over each other, especially when they get excited, enthusiastic, impassioned or angry.
And finally, a note of caution: remember that the cheapest transcription quote might not be the most affordable one in the end. There is an oft-quoted phrase: if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Will it really be cost-effective to send your hard-won interviews to the cheapest service if what comes back is gobbledygook and you have to go through the whole thing correcting every other word? How much time will you then waste that could have been spent more productively on your analysis?
Anne Hickley has many years experience in a wide variety of administrative posts. Roles have included provision of secretarial services, PA work, project management and administration, academic and business report writing and editing, and recruitment. She has worked for a range of companies and institutions from SMEs to multinational businesses. Anne has a degree and a doctorate, and also holds the Diploma in Recruitment Practice, the membership qualification for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
She runs her own small business, Penguin Office Services (http://www.penguinofficeservices.co.uk) and has a website specifically dedicated to transcription at http://www.penguin-transcription.co.uk These provide a wide variety of administrative services to clients around the world, from corporates to individuals.
This article is copyright, Anne Hickley, 2007.
Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

What Are the Main Types of General Transcription?

There are primarily six main types of general transcription. Some transcriptionists concentrate or specialize in just one or two of these specific areas and others take on transcripts in all areas:
  1. Focus Groups are usually found in marketing companies. If you're new to general transcription, it's good to build up some credentials with a couple of contracted companies doing focus groups.
  2. Interviews can take place in person or over the phone and can be an interview of one or more people so this type of work can come from a variety of clients from authors to seminar speakers.
  3. Corporate can be from corporate presentations, quarterly earnings release calls when companies announce their financials for the quarter and year end; teleconferences, seminars, lectures, and conference presentations.
  4. Dictations are normally one speaker recording notes, a journal, instructions, chapters of a book, just about anything while alone.
  5. Podcast are used by smaller companies to help them build their businesses. Generally these little audio files are extremely clear, high quality and there's usually not a lot of research involved to complete the transcript.
  6. Academic transcription projects can be transcribing recordings from class lectures, academic seminars, classroom meetings, etc.
You may find in just a few months of practice alone which types of general transcription you like best, worst or flat out just won't do. Again, this is a personal choice, not something that a boss is going to tell you that you have to do.
Keep in mind, however, that one of the best marketing tips is to find your "niche." What do you have the most experience in? What do you do best, better than anything else? What is your educational background and work history relative to the specialized service you will be offering your clients?
Once you find that niche, then start advertising for clients in that field.
About the Author: After several years in the transcription industry, Karen Musselman recently closed her own transcription company and now designs custom laminated wedding favor bookmarks and offers wedding planning ideas for couples planning their fairy tale weddings on a low budget.
Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/

Monday, February 22, 2010

The Top Benefits of Having Transcription Software for Health Care Providers

It is well-known that a transcription program is a heaven-sent for those who are working as medical transcriptionists. To put it simply, it makes their lives so much easier. However, the benefits far extend from the direct users. It is equally helpful too for health care providers and facilities that are counting on the work of medical transcriptionists.
Here are the top benefits of using software like Infraware for health care professionals:
It can help reduce the costs. Like any business center, a health care facility will always be concerned about how to lower their expenses. This way, they would be able to provide cheaper bills for their patients and higher fees for their professionals, such as doctors and nurses.
A transcription program may help in that department. By using it, you can minimize the costs of training medical transcriptionists. There are plenty of tools that will make voice recognition and text typing more convenient and definitely more accurate.
Normally, if your medical transcriptionist is located in another country, you have to shoulder for the long-distance fees. Otherwise, there is no way that you can transmit the information that has to be written. The good news is that Infraware can assist you in cutting back expenses on telecommunications because you can just make use of the local phone numbers. There is also need to make use of several login IDs for your telephone. This allows for better records of your deals and transactions with medical transcriptionists.
Though the software may be pretty hefty in terms of price tag, you do not have to spend another dime whenever there are upgrades. Of course, you can utilize the software all throughout the life span of your health care business.
It increases the accuracy, security, and integrity of the information. It is highly important that all information will be properly protected or secured, especially against unauthorized individuals such as hackers.
The software called Infraware utilizes SSL technology. If you are not familiar with it, it is being used by online stores that have checkout payments. You would know that it is activated because you are redirected to a page that says https:// instead of http:// on the address bar. Moreover, there is a golden lock or key at the bottom right corner of the screen.
It simply means that the pieces of information are encrypted. When they travel through the World Wide Web and are unfortunately intercepted, the hackers will not be able to do anything about them because they do not understand the language, and they cannot decipher the information.
If you need the reports, you can get them by accessing a secure portal or by opting for an automatic delivery. This then limits the number of people who can have access on the vital information and hence lessen the possibility of tampering by an individual.
Moreover, to ensure that you have got the right patients' record or report, everything will be accompanied by the demographics of the patient, such as his or her record in admissions and discharge.

About the Author
Infraware is the latest and effective transcription software that guarantees accuracy, integrity, and security of information. It is now being used by thousands of medical transcriptionists and providers in different parts of the globe.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Discover How Transcription Software Improves The Productivity Of Medical Transcriptionists

There are thousands of medical transcriptionists all over the world. In fact, it is one of the fastest rising industries to date. A key reason for its boom is its pay. For few hours of work or few pages of transcribed audio files, you could earn as much as hundreds to thousands of dollars a month.

However, a huge issue among medical transcriptionists is productivity. Especially if you can just type 36 hours per minute, you cannot expect yourself to produce a lot of records in a day. Hence, you cannot expect to earn more than those who can type a lot faster than yours.

If your issue is productivity and time, the good news is that you do have an alternative. It is whole new innovative transcription software by the name of Infraware.

With its different tools and features, you can enjoy the following benefits:

You can cut down the training time. How do medical transcriptionists do their job? The truth is that most of them maintain more than just one program. If you have to learn at least 3 applications, just imagine how much time you are going to spend by getting to know them.

Because everything you need is right in Infraware, you can already reduce the training duration. In fact, based on feedback of medical transcriptionists/users, you only need to spend at most an hour to master the program.

You can improve your accuracy. Another reason why it takes you some time to produce something is because of accuracy. If you only have basic medical background, you will definitely grope in the dark once you encounter more advanced terms.

Infraware, however, is equipped with a medical spell checker. It functions very similar to your word processor, where you are provided with the correct spelling of a word and have the option to select it over the wrong one. There is no need to erase and type the correct spelling.

It makes use of a breakthrough technology. Infraware uses FirstDraft, which is a back-end version of ASR (automatic speech recognition) service. If you know how it works, you can picture this scenario.

When the words are dictated, you really do not hear doctors or even nurses say period or comma. They just, well, talk. The job of figuring out where the first sentence ends and the next one begins is on you. This then becomes a problem because you have to reread your document and ensure that the right kinds of punctuations are used.

You can already avoid this with Infraware. The artificial intelligence of this technology can already determine where the periods, commas, and other punctuations are and insert them. They can also capitalize letters. Reediting does not have to be too time-consuming.

You can customize the tool. If you have a unique way of speeding up work such as using keyboard shortcuts, the software allows you to do so. You can assign your most convenient hotkeys for creating a new line or document, conducting spell check, and other functions.


Article Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com

About the Author:

Infraware is the latest and effective transcription software that guarantees accuracy, integrity, and security of information. It is now being used by thousands of medical transcriptionists and providers in different parts of the globe.