William Pollard, the chairman of Fairwyn Investment Company describes the importance of having appropriate methods of training by stating “Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.” Training in the field of healthcare is not just a one-off occurrence or a single day of orientation, but rather, it’s an ongoing process that ensures healthcare professionals are fully equipped to provide safe, high-quality care in a complex and evolving world. Appropriate training in the healthcare realm is the cornerstone of ensuring quality patient care, safety, and developing trust within the entire healthcare system.
Ensuring optimal standards of training are established in every healthcare facility is highly imperative, especially given the numerous risks that arise when these standards aren’t met. For example, according to research from the Association for Talent Development (ATD) 2019 “State of Healthcare Training” report, Healthcare employees used an annual average of 25.5 learning hours, which is significantly less than the average of all other fields by almost 10 hours. Not only does this report show the lack of training hours for healthcare professionals, but the report goes on to show that organizations spend on average $602 per employee for training. In addition to this cost, healthcare organizations also have to introspectively focus on talent retention, another costly venture for any business. In fact, in another 2018 “Workplace Learning Report”, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development. Training is not only costly for healthcare professionals, but also difficult to even implement, but if done correctly, it can yield beneficial results.
Since healthcare professionals cannot typically dedicate their current clinic work hours to training like other professionals, it becomes increasingly difficult for healthcare organizations to have employees invest in additional hours for training. Additionally, the degree of training is best utilized in a real environment, instead of a virtual or mock classroom. This leads to one daunting task for all healthcare organizations that wish to cultivate a culture of excellence by investing in training.
Fortunately, medical scribes provide a cost-effective solution by adding an additional dimension to the training opportunities that organizations wish to provide. Medical scribes are now being utilized as trainers that provide technical and EHR proficiency training to healthcare professionals. When viewing the broad landscape of all the types of professionals in the healthcare setting, medical scribes, with their deep-rooted knowledge behind Electronic Health Records, provide training in documentation standards, billing mechanisms, and even workflow and process guidance. For example, when working with less tech-savvy physicians acclimating to more technical workflows within EHRs, medical scribes can leverage their particular knowledge by not only assisting the provider with their documentation but also providing guidance on their documentation process. This exchange allows for a continuation of care while ensuring accurate documentation standards are being upheld, and of course, a transfer of knowledge between the scribe and provider.
Medical scribes are integrated into every fabric of the healthcare world we know today and are now looked at less as transcribers of information, but instead, the ones who impart the information. When understanding the complexity of healthcare organizations and realizing the need for continuous training, medical scribes provide a cost-effective solution to reinforcing strong documentation habits and improving the overall state of a healthcare facility by transferring their own EHR proficiencies to all.