DIGITAL SCRIBE PROFESSIONAL

We identified only three such studies that evaluated characteristics of documentation created by scribes ( 19-21), and another one used a sociotechnical framework to explore the scribe phenomenon within a broader context.( 4) While many post-HITECH publications have addressed patient safety issues associated with EHRs generally ( 17, 18), few publications have explicitly explored safety–scribe associations. Initially, post-HITECH studies primarily focused on the economic impact of scribe programs in emergency departments.( 8, 9) In the late 2010s, researchers increasingly examined scribes in ambulatory settings.( 10-12) In addition, more published studies explored associations between scribes and patient and provider experiences ( 13-15), and publications began discussing the potential for 'digital scribes'-artificial intelligence (AI) that goes beyond current voice-to-text technology-to further transform clinical encounters.( 16) What We Know About Scribesĭescriptions of scribe programs in the United States using unlicensed personnel first appeared more than 35 years ago.( 7) However, the number of scribe-related publications increased significantly following enactment of the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the subsequent widespread implementation of electronic health records. The type of scribe employment model may affect the ability of health care organizations to evaluate scribe performance and control scribe service quality scribes may be health care organization employees, or contractors provided by scribe staffing agencies.ĭespite these practice variations and the sensitive role scribes play in patient encounters, relatively little has been published about how the use of scribes may affect patient safety.

DIGITAL SCRIBE PROFESSIONAL

Depending on the organization, scribes may be unlicensed or licensed personnel they may only provide documentation assistance or also perform clinical duties per preexisting professional qualifications (e.g., medical assistant, licensed practical nurse, clinical technician). There is no standard job description for scribes. As a result, scribes possess varying levels of documentation skills and clinical knowledge. The rapidly growing medical scribe industry is unregulated: certification is not required, nor are there training standards for scribes (although some organizations-primarily scribe service agencies-offer to train and certify scribes ). There are significant practice variations that can affect the quality of scribe work and ultimately patient care ( 4, 5): They also may affect how patients interact with providers. Interposed between a provider and an EHR, a scribe is uniquely positioned to affect not only how and what information is captured, but also how providers think about and seek information during an encounter. Simply by virtue of their presence, scribes-silent though they may be-make the patient encounter more complex. Under pressure to treat more patients while completing time-intensive electronic health record (EHR) documentation, physicians and licensed independent practitioners have increasingly turned to medical scribes for documentation assistance during patient encounters.( 2) In this sense, the use of scribes can be viewed as a workaround or unintended consequence of EHR use.( 3) What safety aspects should health care organizations consider when implementing and evaluating a scribe program? Background Scribes have supported physicians for thousands of years.( 1) However, little is known about how today's use of medical scribes may affect patient safety.

Digital scribe