Nexus Innovation Network

Member Since: April 2014

Intervention: Emerging Role on the Interprofessional Team: Medical Scribes in the Emergency Department

Partners:

• Grand Valley State University (GVSU)

• Emergency Care Specialists, P.C. (ECS)

Occupations represented: Students and professionals including HIM professionals, medical coders and billers, medical scribes, nurse assistants, nurse practitioners, patient registration professionals, pharmacists, physicians, physicians assistants and registered nurses.

Overview: This collaborative intervention project places students from the Grand Valley State University Scribe Academy on provider teams at emergency departments in western Michigan. The purpose is to study whether adding medical scribes can increase efficiency in the emergency departments and increase satisfaction for patients. Medical Scribes will be assigned to specific providers and focus on documentation of care, identification of key data for care, and document clarification as needed.

The Scribe Academy is taught by GVSU and ECS employees focusing on theoretical and clinical components. Topics include medical billing and coding, health information management, pathophysiology of body systems, diagnostics, common medications, medical terminology and electronic medical record systems. Specific competencies will be measured through testing, surveys, focus groups, and observer evaluations.

Outcome measures include provider efficiency measures such as daily rates for charts completed, patients seen per hour, and number of provider overtime hours paid. Patient satisfaction scores will also be captured. Comparison data will be collected from emergency departments without medical scribes.

Intervention Study Question:

• In emergency rooms, what is the effect of using medical scribes on provider efficiencies and workflow?