![]() As the patient reports their history and symptoms, the scribe takes detailed notes and organizes them into descriptive yet concise HPIs. The scribe then accompanies the physician to the patient’s bedside and watches and/or listens to the encounter. This could include things like the chief complaint, medical and surgical history, and current medications. ![]() Scribes will often open a patient’s record prior to the encounter and inform the doctor about anything they need to know before seeing the patient. The scribe is expected to stay informed regarding each patient’s status from admission to discharge and relay this information to the provider as necessary. Each shift, a scribe works one-on-one with a physician and acts almost as a personal assistant to them. ![]() There are commonly two types of scribes – virtual and on-site – and a typical workday may look different for each, but they both share a common goal: to lighten the documentation load for their provider. Over the past few decades, medical scribes have been remedying this situation by taking over the responsibility of documentation. ![]() These undesirable effects of EHR systems have led to a significant increase in physician burnout over the past several years. This results in fewer patients treated per shift, more time spent at the office, and unsigned charts piling up over several days. For this reason, many physicians tend to stop seeing patients an hour or more before their shift is over, but still end up staying late to finish charts. This means that they only get to spend about one-third of their workday actually providing healthcare, while the rest is lost to documentation and other clerical duties. Some studies report that, on average, for every 1 hour a physician spends with patients, they must spend 2 hours charting those encounters in the EHR. EHRs require thorough documentation and contain dozens of checkboxes to click and unclick to ensure accuracy for insurance and billing purposes – one mistake could have many repercussions. The transition from paper charts to Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems has made it possible for doctors to deliver cohesive and quality healthcare, but it has also created a huge burden. Scribes who work remotely are often called virtual medical scribe, telescribe, virtual scribe or remote medical scribe. More generic names for a medical scribe include doctor scribe, physician scribe, clinical scribe or healthcare scribe. There are scribe positions that can vary depending on medical specialty (e.g., ophthalmology scribe, dermatology scribe). Scribing in a hospital is common and there are many titles including: A medical scribe goes by many names and the title given to a scribe varies depending on whether the position is located in a hospital, clinic or office. Regardless of setting, a scribe’s job is to document the conversation between a doctor and patient in an electronic medical record. The position varies depending on clinical setting, medical specialty, technology used, provider and workflow. What is a medical scribe? This article covers what the roles and duties of a scribe are, basics of why medical scribing is effectively changing healthcare, and who might be interested in becoming a hospital scribe. Medical scribing was introduced in the mid-1990s, but it is still considered a relatively new idea and many people are not familiar with the concept. Scribes work for providers at hospitals, outpatient clinics, and medical offices to improve physician productivity and healthcare efficiency. This allows doctors to spend more time face-to-face with patients and provide personalized care without getting caught up in charts. A medical scribe is someone who is trained to document physician-patient encounters quickly and accurately so that doctors do not have to.
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