Any hospital or medical office has to run like a tight ship. Doctors, nurse practitioners and PAs, and other medical professionals spend their days tending to countless patients with careful thought and treatment. The stakes are high.
That’s why medical scribes play such an important role in supporting clinicians and improving the flow of patient care. By reducing the administrative burden on doctors, medical scribes help improve patient and professional satisfaction.
In this article, we’ll detail why medical scribe work is so important. We’ll also explain why the advent of clinical AI makes it faster and more effective than ever, without sacrificing quality and patient privacy.
What is a Medical Scribe?
A medical scribe is a professional who live-records and documents sessions between doctors and patients. Acting as an assistant to the physician, the scribe’s role is to handle clinical documentation so the nurse or physician can focus more on the patient and less on their clerical tasks.
The scribe takes on responsibilities that include medical history documentation, exam note-taking, filling out patient charts and summarizing medical test results. Everything the scribe records is documented in an electronic health record.
Where AI Comes in
An AI medical scribe is a digital tool that implements artificial intelligence to record, transcribe and summarize interactions between physicians and patients. These tools take on much of the work done by a medical scribe, reducing administrative work for physicians and nurses.
AI medical scribes use the latest AI technology like speech recognition and natural language processing. They extract the relevant information and create succinct medical notes that help update a patient’s record. AI scribes help to create thorough, consistent documentation that supports accurate clinical decisions, without the human error or added headcount expense that comes with a traditional scribe.
Using an AI Scribe: The Benefits
The Benefits for Physicians
While some hesitate to use AI in the workplace, there are many reasons for clinics to adopt AI medical scribes. Here’s why a slow rollout can benefit doctors, patients, and the office. AI medical scribe benefits for doctors are threefold:
- More efficiency: AI scribes boost productivity by live-automating note-taking. This frees physicians to spend less time charting and more time with patients.
- Better work-life balance: Healthcare worker mental health matters, and AI scribes reduce the painful burden of after-hours admin and charting. This means less stress and more personal time for physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants.
- Better reporting accuracy: A good AI medical scribe is supported by trusted research. In addition, advanced voice recognition and autofiling help create streamlined summaries. They also leave less room for human error.
The Benefits for Patients
Patients also reap the benefits of AI medical scribes. Here’s how AI technology can elevate the experience for patients:
- More direct attention and care: If the clinician spends less time on the computer or communicating with a live scribe, they can focus more on the patient, leading to more meaningful interactions.
- A faster appointment experience: Patients face lengthy wait times to check in and be seen by their physician in the exam room. Since the AI medical scribe process streamlines the whole interaction, physicians can move from patient to patient faster than they previously could. ### The Benefits for Clinics Lastly, the clinics themselves benefit by implementing AI medical scribes. With the inclusion of AI into their physician interactions, clinical operations can improve with:
- More cost-effective scribe work: Compared to hiring and onboarding human scribes, AI is much faster to implement and less expensive to scale.
- A simpler workflow and coding: AI medical scribes streamline the administrative workflow and provide coding recommendations based on patient interactions. Clinics are faster, more efficient, and more effective.
What to Look for in an AI Medical Scribe
While most AI medical scribes help physicians and clinics run more efficiently, no two scribe products are exactly alike. As you’re shopping around for the right software, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Does the AI scribe generate notes in real time?
A proper AI scribe will be able to record and create notes live during the appointment, summarizing the important points and filtering out the rest. If a patient makes small talk about the weather, for example, a physician doesn’t need a recap of the weekly forecast. Any subtleties to the patient’s medical concerns, however, should obviously be included.
2. Is the AI scribe portable?
You should opt for an AI medical scribe that’s compatible with desktop and as a mobile app. This way, both in-person and virtual care are covered, and it’s easier for physicians to seamlessly float from room to room.
3. Is the AI scribe customizable?
Some physicians prefer free-form notes, and others work better with a structured template. The ideal AI scribe will adapt to any professional’s preferred needs, specialty, and style. It should also support features like pausing, custom prompts, and pre-charting.
4. Is it private and secure?
With AI medical scribes, security is something you do not want to compromise on. Your preferred app should be HIPAA-compliant, and its users should be covered by a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). As the scribe records in real-time, the date should be processed securely and discarded once the note finishes generating. Notes should be private to the medical professional to keep the physician-patient relationship built on trust.
5. Is it cost-effective?
Lastly, a great AI medical scribe shouldn’t break the bank. Medical tools should be easily accessible to all who need them, and some products can run in the hundreds per seat. But users don’t have to sacrifice quality just because they’re saving on cost.
Getting Started with Implementation
The best part about working with AI tools? The best ones only require a simple implementation. Before you start working with your AI medical scribe, gather the team and assess your goals and needs. Are there specific challenges with documentation you need to address?
From there, run a pilot program with the software of your choice. Test and evaluate what’s working, and what isn’t. From there, the team can better decide if the software is a good fit for the clinic. If everything is a go, understand and confirm the tool’s data storage, privacy policies, and transmission. Double-check that it meets your compliance needs, and implement privacy policies across the clinic to ensure secure use.
Once you have your tool in place, using it is as easy as obtaining patient consent and operating in a relatively quiet environment.
Doximity Scribe is designed to Make Clinical Documentation Simpler and More Secure.
Doximity Scribe is an AI medical scribe that’s easy to use, secure, and best of all, free. At Doximity, we pride ourselves on creating accessible products for healthcare professionals around the world. Users already love Doximity Scribe, and have been using our other tools like Doximity Dialer and DoxGPT to digitally elevate their workflows for free.
Doximity is the largest professional medical network for physicians, with more than 80% of all U.S. doctors as verified members. Sign up and try Doximity Scribe for free today.