Revolution of virtual scribing with smartphone recording apps

Virtual scribing is one among the revolutionary development we have seen in healthcare sector. Virtual scribing has enabled systems to securely manage their patient data in the EMR in real-time. A virtual medical scribe can be treated as a professional who has capability to listen to the discussion which happens between patient and doctor. After listening to the discussion the scribe also interprets it into a patient health data which is meaningful. The best part is today there are many smartphone recording apps which are taking major role in revolutionizing virtual scribes.

How it works?

When a physician makes use of this scribe, doctor can freely consult the patient without have to worry about preparing chart and making notes. This is because the scribe is there to work on charting patient’s health record in real-time. This set up needs high quality microphones to be kept in the exam rooms along with provision of scribe accessing the EMR. The scribe present will document entire chart which includes history of the current illness, surgical history if any, past medical history, social and family history, physical examination, review of systems, labs and imaging, procedure and diagnosis coding, and E & M and plan coding. These things will be documented in few minutes during the doctor-patient discussion. Soon after the discussion physician can review this chart and sent it for billing.

Smartphone recording apps and virtual scribes

Today there are many high quality recording apps available in smartphones which are really helping virtual scribes. To understand virtual scribe, when it is used, he or she will not be present in the examination room. But the scriber will be able to listen as well as chart the discussion among doctor and patient. Scribe will also enter all the notes, CPT or ICD codes, along with all the other relevant data like eRx which is needed and patient chart is created.

Later the doctor will get opportunity to review the chart with that virtual scribe via secured VOIP connection. If needed the edits will happen to the patient’s chart and later he will sign off. In case of normal scribe, there is necessity that a scribe should be physically present in the exam room along with the doctor. Here the scribe manually transcribes the patient’s data into the chart. One thing is this process can be comparatively expensive. More than that, majority of the patients feel discomfort when a person other than doctor is present in the exam room.

This is the reason most of the people healthcare industry prefer virtual scribes. The main drawback of physical scribe is that when there is demand it is difficult to move them from one location to another without loss of time. This is because some time should be spent for scribe travel. In case if the physical scribe is sick or on leave, then some other should jump in and complete the work.

Final thoughts

Earlier, physicians were spending their time mainly to update the medical records of their patient in the computers. This is the reason they were getting less time for examination. Even after their work hours, they were spending a lot of time to complete the charts and other documentation needs. This is where the virtual scribe come and help physicians. They can lessen physician’s burden. Hence doctors can concentrate only on examining the patients.

With the revolution in the technology, there are many apps and platforms which can be used for virtual scribes. Among them most useful ones are recording apps available in the smartphones. These recording apps have revolutionized virtual scribes and they are very helpful. Hence documentation and chart preparation have become easier, simple, and accurate as well.