Purpose of a scribe

• Medical scribes have an emerging and expanding role in healthcare in Australia.
• Scribes increase productivity, improve doctor efficiency which decreases length of stay, and those who work with them strongly support their use.
• This alleviates the timely burden of documentation for the doctor, freeing them to practice more clinical medicine.

Benefits of the job

• Gain huge experience in history taking and examination and notes synthesis.
• Have continual access to a specialist and the opportunity to witness bedside consultations.
• Knowledge gained through detailed training program.
• Get paid for getting invaluable medical exposure.
• Obtain a very valuable CV addition.
• Obtain medical school references that will be highly sought after.
• The opportunity to see if medicine is really for you, before committing to years of post-graduate training.
• Be able to learn huge amounts of medicine  – how to write notes, how to order tests, how to obtain medical opinions and document them and you will be exposed to a very wide spectrum of clinical consultations.

About the Courses:

The only Australian course in medical scribing for the Australian Healthcare setting.

MedScribe has a selection of course offerings to train scribes. Interactive learning with quizzes, activities and case examples helps students learn to document the clinical consultation in real time, and to act as personal assistants to doctors.

These courses are perfect for people who want to up-skill in medical documentation, to learn the role of this unique and innovative space in healthcare. Ideal course candidates are people who have a real passion for healthcare, who are interested in going to medical or nursing school, or any allied health profession. IMG students would also benefit from the module on specific aspects of the Australian Healthcare landscape, as well as observing the specialist doctors interview and examine patients. The knowledge and skills of how to document an accurate, concise and thorough medical record will be valuable for any career in the health workplace and will help them for years to come. 

These interactive courses instruct you on medical terminology and abbreviations, structure of a medical chart and healthcare and privacy information.

You’ll learn to become a medical scribe to assist doctors with their documentation and administrative tasks, how to complete medical charts, as well as the scope of practice for a doctors clinical assistant, AKA “scribe”.

The course styles are a mixed model including:

Self-paced learning modules

Interactive audio and visual activities 

Textbook Activities

Written assignments with model answers

Case studies

Real time mock and patient videos for real-time clinical assistant experience

Suggested pre-requisites to succeed as a scribe:

Be a Pre-med or biomed students

Have experience in Medical transcription

Typing speed > 80 words/min

Excellent English Skills

Working knowledge of medical terminology, abbreviations, anatomy and physiology

Purpose of a scribe

Medical scribes have an emerging and expanding role in healthcare.

Scribes have been shown to:

• increase productivity
• improve doctor efficiency
• enhance accuracy of medical notes

Which all increase patient flow and ease streamlined medical assessment and management.

When doctors are alleviated of the timely burden of documentation, they are free to focus on the patient and practice more medicine, and they value that reclaimed time in their day.

MedScribe trains medical scribes to document the clinical consultation in real time, and to act as personal assistants to doctors. By streamlining processes in clerical tasks, scribes help doctors optimise their workflow and increase their productivity. This results in reduced waiting times and increased access to medical services for the community. The accurate and timely documentation ensures better communication between healthcare providers, and obviously improves patient safety.  Scribes are becoming an integral part of the health care team, helping medical specialists be more efficient and therefore keep up with growing demand for medical treatment.

Medical Scribes (AKA “Assistants in Medicine”) are essentially personal assistants to doctors. They play an important support role to doctors, assisting in all manner of documentation and clerical duties. Scribes are a unique and innovative role in the healthcare landscape.

Streamlined clerical tasks help doctors optimise their workflow and increase their productivity. This results in reduced waiting times and increased access to medical services for the community. The accurate and timely documentation ensures better communication between healthcare providers, and obviously improves patient safety.  Scribes are becoming an integral part of the health care team in Australia, helping medical specialists be more efficient and therefore keep up with growing demand for medical treatment.

What Are the Duties of a Medical Scribe?

The primary duty of a medical scribe is to record the details of a patient’s exam—clinical history, current complaints, diagnoses, procedures performed (either by the physician or other healthcare professionals) and medical orders given (including prescriptions and tests). Scribes may also be present to document the physician’s conversations with family members or consultations with other healthcare providers.

Scribes may enter post-exam data into the EHR, including the results of radiology and pathology work so the physician has all of the necessary data to make treatment decisions.

NOTE: Scribes do not provide any patient care or offer any medical advice since they are not licensed medical professionals.

Where do scribes work?

Generally, medical scribes work on-site at one particular hospital or clinic, though they can also work remotely from a HIPAA-secure location. At their assigned facility, they usually partner with several providers and are assigned to physicians on an as-needed basis.

Want to read more about scribes? The American College for Emergency Physicians has several summaries regarding scribe use and scribe programs http://www.acepnow.com/article/use-scribes-emergency-department/