Review article on use of scribes

Despite the now widespread use of medical scribes, there are few studies out there that objectively measure the results of their use. A literature review out of the Journal of  the American Board of Family Medicine identified five studies from 2000 to 2014 analyzing the impacts on clinical practice of using a scribe. 

The results were as follows:

• 2/3 of showed no effect on patient satisfaction. There is a belief out there that the use of scribes will improve patient satisfaction because of the increased attention given to the patient, but in our experience, providers don't change who they are--they continue to practice in a similar way, but they get home earlier with all of their documentation done. That is a good segue to the next finding.
• 2/2 reported improved clinician satisfaction. Medical scribes can greatly relieve the symptoms of burnout that some providers may be experiencing from the overwhelming number of things they are expected to do.
• 2/2 reported an increase in RVUs per hour. RVUs, or relative value units, are numeric values assigned to each chart that quantifies how much the provider is reimbursed. Therefore, an increase in RVUs per hour suggests that either the documentation was better and thereby warranted more RVUs or the provider saw more patients per hour, on average. In any case, the use of scribes can be a net neutral expense if they increase patient volumes or charting quality.

These were the biggest takeaways from the article and we wanted to highlight some of them because they help provide some objective information about using scribes in a clinical practice that is naive to them. 

The full article can be found here: https://www.jabfm.org/content/28/3/371