Have you ever wanted someone to record your words as you say them, completely eliminating the daunting task of writing everything down? As handwritten documentation becomes obsolete, Doctors are becoming more creative in how they use their Electronic Health Record software. Doctors are having difficulty staying engaged with their patients while documenting vital information, leading to what is referred to as “professional burnout”. The solution to their problem? Medical scribes.
Scribes can be described as the shadow of a Doctor. They record the entire encounter a Doctor has with a patient from start to finish. Dr. Jey, a Sutter General ER Doctor, describes these scribes as “ninjas because of their unobtrusive nature and quick-thinking abilities”. If a Doctor is evaluating a patient, you will find a scribe in the room observing and documenting all of the important information in medical terms while complementing his or her provider’s note-taking “style” and workflow.
You may be wondering: do scribes need a medical background to record what the Doctor and patient are saying accurately? The answer is yes. Hospital-employed medical scribes are typically postgraduates applying to medical school. For example, Hannah Chan, a 23-year-old UC Berkeley alum, has been working as a scribe for over a year and a half at the Sutter Medical Center. Her previous experiences are no comparison to the valuable experiences she is gaining now. “I get to get into the brain of the doctor and really understand what they’re doing”.
With scribes in hospitals, Doctors are killing two birds with one stone. Providers can maintain focus on their patients while also training future Doctors in medical terminology, enabling them to determine not only the “what” but also the “why” of diagnoses and other components of the patient’s medical record.
RXNT’s EHR offers a cloud-based solution that helps Doctors and medical scribes successfully document crucial patient data. With RXNT’s e-prescribing solution that integrates with our EHR, Doctors have a full suite of tools to run large hospitals to small practices while avoiding penalties from states that have mandated EHR use in specific settings.
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