The Use of Medical Scribes in Primary Care Settings

Abstract

Background: Clerical burdens have strained primary care providers already facing a shifting health care landscape and workforce shortages. These pressures may cause burnout and job dissatisfaction, with negative implications for patient care. Medical scribes, who perform real-time electronic health record documentation, have been posited as a solution to relieve clerical burdens, thus improving provider satisfaction and other outcomes. Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify and synthesize the published research on medical scribe utilization in primary care and safety net settings. Research Design: We conducted a review of the literature to identify outcomes studies published between 2010 and 2020 assessing medical scribe utilization in primary care settings. Searches were conducted in PubMed and supplemented by a review of the gray literature. Articles for inclusion were reviewed by the study authors and synthesized based on study characteristics, medical scribe tasks, and reported outcomes. Results: We identified 21 publications for inclusion, including 5 that examined scribes in health care safety net settings. Scribe utilization was consistently reported as being associated with improved productivity and efficiency, provider experience, and documentation quality. Findings for patient experience were mixed. Conclusions: Published studies indicate scribe utilization in primary care may improve productivity, clinic and provider efficiencies, and provider experience without diminishing the patient experience. Further large-scale research is needed to validate the reliability of study findings and assess additional outcomes, including how scribes enhance providers’ ability to advance health equity.

How can we improve the quality of data collected in general practice?

“…This does not currently happen in UK general practice, where most funding comes from capitation payments. In the US, some services use medical scribes to update the electronic record in real time, and this has been shown to improve workflow, patient and practitioner experience, and data quality 343536. Outsourcing data collection to non-clinical team members would tend to maintain barriers between clinical practice and research, perpetuating missed opportunities for practices to benefit from the data they collect.…”

“…Additional resources will be necessary to improve data quality. NHS Digital has created financial incentives for providers to submit higher quality data, but these initiatives exclude general practice 333738. During the covid-19 pandemic, NHS England required practices to provide standardised data on appointments without financial support 3940.…”

Implementing Electronic Health Records in Primary Care Using the Theory of Change: Nigerian Case Study

“…There is a growing interest in alternative data entry approaches, including the "scribe" model (in US primary care) [69], natural language processing-enabled data capture, and optical mark recognition (OMR). These alternative approaches could address the issue of clinicians' avoidance of using the EHR system.…”

Impact of a Medical Scribe Program on the Educational Trajectory of Prehealth and Underrepresented in Medicine Students

“…Medical scribing, in addition to enhancing patient-provider interactions and reducing electronic health record (EHR) clerical burden for clinicians, [1][2][3][4] offers a unique educational opportunity for prehealth students to gain clinical immersion, acquire medical knowledge, and practice critical thinking. 5 Many prehealth students choose to work as medical scribes to gain clinical experience, 6 and admissions committees view medical scribing favorably in students' applications to health professional programs.…”