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The world has become quite reliant on the computer. Few  people don’t sit in front of their computer for some period of time anymore.  Some more than others, but it is quite obvious that the strain and inappropriate setup  can produce problems with the wear and tear on the body.  Professional typists, transcribers, secretaries, virtual assistance, computer programmers and designers, all spend far too much time idle in front of the computer and then find that their workstation  is harming them more than helping them.

Here are 10 tips that we have found that help with keeping the strain on the body to a minimum:

1. Layout of work area is crucial.  Make sure you have enough space to lay out out the things you use regularly, like the phone, pencil holder, calculator and even your coffee cup so that reaching for it gives you full extension of your limbs an at the same time gives you a reachable item without having to strain to get to it.
2. Keyboard placement, especially for typists is crucial so that you can avoid injuries from repetitive movement such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Tendinitis.  Keyboards should be placed so that your arms are parallel to the ground. If your desk doesn’t allow for this, keyboard trays and adjustable chairs help with elevating and placing things properly.  Make sure your hands rest comfortably on the keyboard and keep your fingers light and airy instead of pounding on the keyboard.
3. Mouse placement would be your next concern, especially for graphic artists, designers and those who rely on the mouse for a great deal of their work.  Make sure it is all within reach so that you are not straining your arms, wrists and elbows to get to it.  Place it in a natural and comfortable level as your keyboard and keep your grip relaxed, your mouse isn’t going to escape! When using trackballs, I recommend switching between trackball and mouse so that your hands and fingers aren’t strained, and you change the direction and usage of certain muscles and tendons.
4. Monitor’s should be set at an eye level if you are looking straight ahead.  Neck strain and eyestrain are a leading cause of problems with typists and most if could be avoided.  Use monitor shelves and glare screens to help keep your eyes and your neck from being used in an efficient manner.  Remember to look away from your monitor regularly, and if you need to, use different types of lighting and screen diffusers so that you can find what is right and what works for you.
5. Lighting is a also a factor in a comfortable workstation.   In large office building where lighting is difficult to control, there are ways to avoid over lighting by either asking for a bulb or two to be removed from the fluorescent overheads or to obtain screen’s that cut down the glare. Using different colors on your monitor can also cut down on the eyestrain, they can include soft blues, greys but everyone’s preference is different.
6. Chair placement and height will help eliminate discomfort as well.  Typists sit for long periods of time and because of that we feel the strain in our lower backs and shoulders.  Lumbar support as well as a foot rest under your desk can help with maintaining good posture and keep the strain down to a minimum.  Each one of these elements combined to give you a good reach and placement of the keyboard and mouse as well.
7. Phones are something we are always on.  Talking to customers, paying bills, or just talking to family or co-workers.  Each time you pick up that phone and tuck it up under your head between your shoulder and neck, you are creating stress.  If you can provide yourself with a shoulder rest or better yet, a head set giving you a natural position to be able to multi-task between a phone and computer.
8. Desks are not built for a one size fits all scenarios.  Everyone has different needs and preferences.  Make sure that your desk gives you enough versatility to maneuver things to fit you, keeping underneath uncluttered and everything within reach.
9. Laptops are now being used more than ever.  Even though they are called a ‘lap’ top, there really shouldn’t be a constant usage with it sitting in your lap.  Use it off of a table whenever possible and in addition, use a separate keyboard or mouse when ever you can.
10. Some areas that can be overlooked are when you yourself are dressed inappropriately to be sitting for long periods of time in front of your computer.  Wearing bracelets can affect your typing and mouse usage, where a thick wallet can unbalance your spine and make your posture more harmful than helpful.  Long and large earrings makes it difficult to talk on a phone comfortably and high heels to keep your posture out of whack while sitting.

Consider these ergonomics next time you sit down to type or work in front of your computer for long periods of time.  It could be saving you some painful injuries and possibly even surgeries in the future. If you are an employer and finding it difficult to keep up with the needs of your employer or feel that these things are unnecessary, remember your insurance and the down time you will create should they eventually need the time away the computer in the long run.  It might just be more financially sound to be sure they are comfortable than to lose a good worker for months or permanently in the long run.

Since we are out of the office tomorrow and through the weekend, we thought we would leave you with this bit of motivation and advice:

1. Walk for 10-30 minutes every day, while smiling.
2. Sit quietly for at least 10 minutes every day, in isolation if necessary.
3. Upon arising in the morning, one must immediately say, “My goal today is…”
4. Listen to quality music every day. This is real nourishment for the soul.
5. Live with the 3 Es:Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
6. Play more games than last year.
7. Read more books than last year.
8. Look at the sky at least once a day, appreciating the majesty of the world that surrounds us.
9. Dream more while awake.
10. Eat more foods that come from trees and plants. Eat less manufactured foods.
11. Eat berris and nuts. Drink green tea, plenty of water each day; toast something beawutiful in life and, if possible, in the company of a loved one.
12. Try to make at least 3 people laugh every day.
13. Don’t spend your precious time immersed in rumors, things from the past, negative thoughts or things beyond your control. It is better to invest your energy in the positive present.
14. Life is a school, and we are here to learn. Problems are lessons that come and go; what we learn from them will serve us for the rest of our lives.
15. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a beggar.
16. Eliminate clutter in the home, the car and the office. Let a new energy enter your life.
17. Smile and laugh more often.
18. Do not let an opportunity pass to hug a friend.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating someone.
20. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Nobody else does.
21. It is not necessary to win every argument. One must accept that the other person is not in agreement, and earn from his position.
22. Make peace with your past, so not to ruin your present.
23. Don’t compare your life with others. You have no idea of the highways they have traveled during their lives.
24. Nobody is responsible for your happiness, except yourself.
25. Remember well that we have no control over what happens to us, but only what we do.
26. Learn something new every day.
27. What others think of us is not completely under our control.
28. Appreciate your body, and it’s marvels.
29. Whether the situation is good or bad, it will change.
30. Work will not take care of us when we are sick. Our friends will. Stay in contact with them.
31. Reject everything that is not useful, amusing or beautiful.
32. Don’t lose time. We already have all the things we need.
33. The best is yet to come.
34. Nothing is as important as sitting, standing, getting dressed, and helping others.
35. Phone your family regularly, and tell them “Hi, I was thinking of you.”
36. Each day, before going to sleep, say: I am thankful for ____________. Today, I succeeded in _________________.
37. Remember that we have too much that is good to e stressed.
38. Enjoy the voyage. There is only one chance to be successful.
39. You don’t get a second chance to make an impression.
40. Friends are a precious commodity, make sure they know that before it’s too late.

With technology doing a lot of the work for us, spelling, grammar, punctuation, we have become quite lazy in our own proofreading skills. It is still necessary to continue to read things ourselves to catch the errors that most computers and software doesn’t pick up.

Here are a few ways to continue to improve your proofreading skills:

• When you are proofreading your own work, walk away from it for at least a couple of hours and then return to it with a fresh mind. If you have time, try a full day. After sleeping on it, will help you identify errors or elements that you wouldn’t see otherwise.

• Read the article out loud to yourself.  Literally, read the words out loud so that if the flow of the sentence and the punctuation doesn’t produce a well worded phrase, it should probably be changed.  Yes, you will get coworkers looking at you a bit oddly, so if you want to avoid that, take your document home with you and read it in the bathroom while taking your bath or doing other things.  It’s amazing at what this little trick will do to help you find errors. If you can download and use them, here are two programs that can be used that will read your article back to you so you can concentrate on general elements and hear it being read back to you:

http://www.naturalreaders.com/ (Free Download and Pro version provides more options)
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/ (Free Trial)

• Read the article backwards.  Believe it or not, this will help you find misspellings as your eye focuses on the word and not the entire sentence.  You might even find another word that could be used instead of the common words you are using repeatedly, extending your vocabulary at the same time.

• Practice makes perfect and there is no substitute.  Pick up books, forms and so much more and continue to provide yourself with challenges throughout your day, which may or may not provide results, but will keep your eye and your mind in tune with knowledge of vocabulary, punctuation, sentence structure, grammar and spelling.

• Don’t rely on your computer or software to do all your proofreading.  There is no substitution for the human touch and even though technology has provided us with quicker ways to help us, we are truly, ultimately responsible for the results.  Computers aren’t the one’s whose reputation is on the line.

• Don’t edit your sentences right away.  Write a sentence or two or even a paragraph and return to it to edit everything at once.  Ask yourself several questions when doing so such as:

• Can my sentences be restructured (nouns, verbs and adjectives) to be clearer about its meaning?
• Am I using a word repeatedly? What other words could be used?
• Can I remove or add information without confusing the reader and still get the meaning across?
• Does my paragraph fit in the sequence of events or outline of the paper?

Another trick that may not necessarily be something that will help your skills, but will help your articles is let someone else read over it.  A second pair of eyes is always good and a third is even better.  Busy schedules may not always allow for it, so be careful when asking someone else to help you.  Your deadline may not fit in with their schedule, and you may find yourself in a bind if waiting on someone else to provide you with results.

These are a just a few ways of improving your proofreading skills.  Taking classes, practice and continued improvement of your skills takes time, so don’t get frustrated in your learning process.  Keep trying and as you improve you will find your eyes and mind become quite honed and in tune making your proofreading skills almost second nature.

Transcription and virtual assistance work can be very rewarding especially when your clients know that you are handling things with a great confidence.  With the Internet and the fears of hackers, email fraud and phishing continuing to put our identities and our professional activities on the edge.

There have been numerous ways that people have developed to provide easier ways to keep the work that we pass back and forth on the Internet Super Highway more confidential and secure.  By implementing these elements, it makes it a bit more difficult to feel as if we have been invaded and can continue to do transactions on line. Some of these  ways are:

1. Secure Servers: These are always indicated by the little padlock in the bottom right hand corner of your browser while you are within the pages that are crucial to the transaction.  This encrypts your personal information and financial information to keep your identity safe and secure from prying eyes.
2. User Accounts: Providing the users with accounts to keep their transaction details to only those who have been authorized to review those transactions provides a sense of confidence that is needed, especially for those clients who wish  to keep their details hush, hush.
3. Encrypted Email: Services such as Hushmail.com can provide encrypted emails to your clients to keep your emails private and confidential.
4. Password Protected Attachments: Documents provided in .pdf and .zip can be password protected for that added extra security.

These are just a few ways that we ensure our clients their confidentiality and their security while providing them with top services in the virtual realm.  The world wide web is a very vast place and knowing that you can secure just a corner of it gives you and your clients the ability to return to do business again and again.

In 1996, the United States Federal Government enacted the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The purpose of this act was to increase and further insure the use of technology and the use of digital data transactions to improve the privacy of personal medical information by those handling this data. In addition to insuring privacy of personal data, it was to also help increase the efficiency of the U.S. health care system.

There are two Title’s in this act. Title I addressed the group health insurance liabilities. Something that is not necessarily pertinent to this particular entry,but good information to know should you ever need it.

Title II addresses the concern of preventing health care fraud and abuse and what the liabilities to administration are.    We will be addressing this element for those that might need the use of a Medical Transcriptionist.

The HIPPA established many elements of security safeguards that need to be adhered to by anyone handling medical transcription or records.   These are in three categories:

• Technical – This covers the element of data transmission and how it is handled by secure transmission and what procedures to implement in case   of security.     It is provided to the government for approval prior to providing the services.

• Physical – This element covers the physical hardware, accessibility to said hardware and workstation requirements for use and privacy.

• Administrative – Policies and standard operating procedures that will be provided to how they will comply with the act. These include elements of who deals with the records, organization of records, storage of records to disaster recovery of data.

Each of these elements is written down in more detail and can be found under Title II in the HIPAA. ALL Medical Transcriptionist services should be HIPAA approved and compliant.   Make sure that if you are dealing with sensitive information that security elements are put into place to keep your documents and information secure, even if you are not asking for Medical Transcription to be done. Security is also a vital part of our service to you, our client.   Ask us about our procedures and our privacy policy we will do our best to certify that your documents are handled with the utmost care.