How Providers Can Optimize Effective and Safe Scribe Use: a Qualitative Study.

Background: The use of electronic health records has generated an increase in after-hours and weekend work for providers. To alleviate this situation, the hiring of medical scribes has rapidly increased. Given the lack of scribe industry standards and the wide variance in how providers and scribes work together, it could potentially create new patient safety-related risks.

Translating ethnographic data into knowledge, skills, and attitude statements for medical scribes: a modified Delphi approach.

Objective: While the use of medical scribes is rapidly increasing, there are not widely accepted standards for their training and duties. Because they use electronic health record systems to support providers, inadequately trained scribes can increase patient safety related risks. This paper describes the development of desired core knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) for scribes that provide the curricular framework for standardized scribe training.

A qualitative study of provider burnout: do medical scribes hinder or help?

Objective: Provider burnout is a crisis in healthcare and leads to medical errors, a decrease in patient satisfaction, and provider turnover. Many feel that the increased use of electronic health records contributes to the rate of burnout. To avoid provider burnout, many organizations are hiring medical scribes.

The future of medical scribes documenting in the electronic health record: results of an expert consensus conference.

Background: With the use of electronic health records (EHRs) increasing and causing unintended negative consequences, the medical scribe profession has burgeoned, but it has yet to be regulated. The purpose of this study was to describe scribe workflow as well as identify the threats and opportunities for the future of the scribe industry.

Methods: The first phase of the study used ethnographic methods consisting of interviews and observations by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at five United States sites.

Priorities of Hybrid Clinician-Managers: A Qualitative Study of How Managers Balance Clinical Quality Among Competing Responsibilities.

Objective: Oversight of clinical quality is only one of physical therapy managers' multiple responsibilities. With the move to value-based care, organizations need sound management to navigate this evolving reimbursement landscape. Previous research has not explored how competing priorities affect physical therapy managers' oversight of clinical quality.

Safe use of the EHR by medical scribes: a qualitative study.

Objective: Hiring medical scribes to document in the electronic health record (EHR) on behalf of providers could pose patient safety risks because scribes often have no clinical training. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of scribes on patient safety. This included identification of best practices to assure that scribe use of the EHR is not a patient safety risk.

Factors Impacting Physical Therapy Utilization for Patients With Nonspecific Low Back Pain: Retrospective Analysis of a Clinical Data Set.

Objective: Factors predicting physical therapy utilization for lower back pain (LBP) remain unclear, limiting the development of value-based initiatives. The purpose of this study was to identify important factors that impact the number of physical therapist visits per episode of care for US adults with nonspecific LBP.

Methods: This study was a retrospective observational cohort study of a clinical dataset derived from 80 clinics of a single physical therapy provider organization.

A Sociotechnical Multiple Perspectives Approach to the Use of Medical Scribes: A Deeper Dive into the Scribe-Provider Interaction.

Because of increased electronic health record use, many organizations are hiring medical scribes as a way to alleviate provider burnout and increase clinical efficiency. The providers and scribes have unique relationships and thus, this study's purpose was to examine the scribe-provider interaction/relationship through the perspectives of scribes, providers, and administrators utilizing qualitative research techniques. Participants included 81 clinicians (30 providers, 27 scribes, and 24 administrators) across five sites.

Criterion validity, reliability and clinical responsiveness of the CareConnections Functional Index.

This study established the criterion validity, test-retest reliability and responsiveness of the CareConnections Functional Index (CCFI). The CCFI is composed of four body-region specific subscales, measuring functional ability. Reference standards included the Neck Disability Index; Modified Oswestry Disability Index; Quick Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand and the Lower Extremity Functional Scale.