ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Electronic medical records have spawned a new health care profession: medical scribe.
Working alongside doctors, scribes enter information into a computer, their fingers furiously typing away so the doctors’ digits don’t have to.
“I feel like it benefits me, but it benefits the patients more,” said Dr. Meena Agarwala of St. Luke’s Northern Valley Primary Care in Hanover Township, Lehigh County. That’s because she spends less time facing a computer screen and more time face-to-face with the individuals in her exam room.
The medical scribe industry exploded after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The law gave health care providers five years to demonstrate “meaningful use” of electronic medical records in order to maintain their Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels.
The file cabinets that had long been a fixture in so many doctor’s offices would soon be obsolete.
Today, some 18,000 people nationally work as medical scribes, according to the American College of Medical Scribe Specialists, a nonprofit in Orange County, Calif. ScribeAmerica, which describes itself as “the most frequently used medical scribe company,” has more than 9,000 employees in 48 states, according to its website.
The use of medical scribes is catching on in the Lehigh Valley as well. Among ScribeAmerica’s clients are St. Luke’s University Health Network and Lehigh Valley Health Network, both of which have recently instituted scribe pilot programs.
Dr. Mark Wendling, the medical director of LVHN’s Valley Preferred practice in South Whitehall Township, began working with scribes about six months ago.
During an examination, he plays the role of color commentator at his own ballgame, describing aloud what he’s doing, seeing, thinking. The scribe, meanwhile, plugs this steady stream of information directly into the patient’s electronic medical record.
“The best thing about the scribe journey for me, aside from not having to type as much, is that my patient gets to hear, pretty much verbatim, my plan,” Wendling said, “This is a level of transparency that is above and beyond.”
With the shift to electronic medical records, the laptop has, arguably, laid claim to the stethoscope’s title as the most important tool of the medical profession.
