This should be a day that Dr. Sarah Jones looks back on and remembers fondly for years to come. After all, her daughter just scored her first goal on the soccer field! The only problem: When it happened, Dr. Jones was head-down in her laptop, finishing up her clinical notes from a fast-paced day inside her clinic. She missed her daughter’s big moment. Now, she’s quickly asking other parents if they caught it on video.
Unfortunately, stories like this happen constantly as physicians continue to feel drained and frustrated by clinical documentation tasks. A 2020 study found that physicians spend an average of just over 16 minutes on EHRs for each patient visit, a number that has to go down if we are to solve the physician burnout crisis.
The fact is, providers want to see more patients. I talked to one recently who told me he’d love to double her patient load, but he can’t because it would mean doing twice the amount of paperwork.
Yet hep is on the horizon. Virtual medical scribing is rapidly emerging as a popular and effective way to improve documentation turnaround times, ease physician burnout, and reduce the number of clicks providers need to make within their EHR. Let’s look at four ways to optimize virtual scribing and help your clinicians streamline clinical documentation:
1. Know your providers’ documentation preferences.
In a recent webinar, we asked attendees to list the way their providers prefer to document patient encounters. The results:
- 67% – Transcription
- 58% – Medical Scribing
- 58% – Front-end speech
- 58% – Handwritten notes
The numbers obviously add up to more than 100%, which means most providers currently use more than one method of clinical documentation. Some, for example, may choose to use a medical scribe for their clinical notes, and then opt to transcribe their Operating Room reports.
No matter how an individual provider performs clinical documentation, it’s clear that clinicians seek optionality.
2. Understand the potential benefits of virtual medical scribing.
Providers who have used virtual medical scribing report high satisfaction levels. In fact, studies have shown that scribing allows clinicians to spend 75% of their time on direct patient interaction and just 25% of their time on documentation.
Why is scribing such a time-saver? Because the best virtual scribing solutions can automatically upload completed clinical documentation directly into a healthcare organization’s EHR. That means providers need to spend only a few minutes reviewing and signing off on their notes, as opposed to the multiple edits and clicks needed with transcribing.
Want to learn more? Check out my colleague Rinkal Patel’s blog exploring the top 3 benefits of virtual medical scribing.
3. Rely on highly trained medical scribes.
Not all virtual medical scribing solutions are created equal. DeliverHealth uses highly trained medical scribes who are well-versed in medical terminology. They use their expertise to create accurate notes that providers can trust. You should demand nothing less for your healthcare organization.
4. Meet your providers where they already are.
Some healthcare leaders want to use virtual medical scribing but don’t want to add a new clinical documentation workflow that their providers must manage. Virtual medical coding through DeliverHealth allows providers to use a mobile app with which they’re already familiar—eScriptionOne, currently used by 1000+ healthcare organization for transcribing.
With our app, providers can choose whether they want to transcribe or scribe—whatever suits their need for that particular encounter—using a platform and workflow they already know. To scribe, all they have to do is tap a patient’s name on their daily schedule and then tap the record button. A medical scribe does the rest.
Because providers use their iPhone’s microphone, scribes get high recording quality. And all parties benefit from high levels of security, because eScriptionOne is a fully encrypted mobile app powered by a platform that operates within the secure Azure cloud.
Try virtual medical scribing today
Don’t let Dr. Jones—or any of your clinicians—miss major life moments because they’re spending too much time on documentation.
See for yourself how virtual medical scribing can help simplify your providers’ documentation workflows. Sign up for a If you want to discuss scribing with one of our team members before you start your trial, let’s talk.