Scribes vs. Dragon Medical

Why Scribes should not be used:

• Most scribes are not licensed.
• Medical scribes are an intrusion into patient’s privacy and may cause a patient to hide critical health information.  It’s hard to connect with one person examining your body, let alone with a second person with possibly no medical background.
• Medical scribes can translate incorrectly, compromising patient care.  Ever play the “Telephone Game” or “Pass the Message”.  The original message is never the same as the original. 
• Medical scribes make providers free of accountability.  (“That’s not what I said.”)
• Medical scribes in the ER only add another body and more confusion to an already fast paced critical setting. 
• Scribes can get sick!  Then what does the doctor do?
• Scribes waste time writing and then typing the patient note into the EMR.  They certainly don’t speak it in with Dragon, because if they did, they would see how easy enough it would be for the provider to speak it in themselves.

Now that the medical world has finally found footing with the Electronic Medical Record systems, should they really take a step backwards in hiring scribes for something they can quickly, easily and in a proven manner enter into the system themselves?   EMR’s improve patient care, improve patient records, and increase profitability by billing quicker and at higher rates.  They can slow a provider down, but there are tools to remedy this.  For instance, training alone on an EMR will provide shortcuts and hints for quick entries.  Coupled with training and implementation of Dragon Medical Practice Edition, a provider only has to spend a minimal amount of time entering a note.  Dragon Medical Practice Edition allows providers to speak their notes, instead of type.  With effective training, it is easy to use and ultimately saves providers time and money.

It’s proven.  

CASE STUDY:

Orthopedics Northwest: 

9 Physicians – 7 Mid-Level Providers

280,000 patients

NextGen EMR

$75,000 reduction in transcription costs

3% reduction in overhead

11% increase in complex patient (Level 4) in six months

Faster turnaround times

QUOTE:

“Without Dragon Medical, we would have had to cut back on a full schedule by 5%.  Dragon Medical is an absolute necessity with an EHR.” – Chuck Stillwaggon – Practice Administrator  

taken from http://www.mindwareconnections.com/