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Do medical scribes slow EHR improvement?

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Some physicians at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) expressed concerns about the growing use of medical scribes  to make entries into electronic health record systems.

George Gellert, M.D., of the CHRISTUS  Health hospital system in Texas, said:

“The use of scribes is undermining the usual market forces that would drive the advancement of EHRs,” arguing that physicians may be “satisfied with a suboptimal product because ‘my scribes deal with it,'” thus slowing improvement of EHRs, which still leave much to be desired. Other physicians at the meeting discussed the danger of “mission creep,”  in which over-busy physicians would let scribes, who are not clinicians, make EHR entries that should only be made by physicians.

 


Ariz. hospital E.D. cuts wait times even as patients increase

 

This Modern Healthcare piece looks at how the Payson (Ariz.) Regional Medical Center has cut wait times in its emergency department even as the number of patients using it has increased.

The publication summed up the strategies as:

  • Allowing nurses to order routine lab and imaging tests.
  • Shifting schedules to make more providers available at the busiest times.
  • Hiring  medical scribes to enter notes into EHRs for physicians.
  • Promoting teamwork “with huddles at the end of each shift.”

 

 

 

 


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