Scribes in the ED

We have scribes in our ED. They can be a great help to a nurse or a pain in the neck, depending. I appreciate that they have a job to do, but assessing patients is the nurse's job. All in all, I really do like the scribes we have and appreciate them.

I worked in one ED who used them and I feel that the money and time would have been better spent on hiring a PA or an NP to see patients.

I think if a doctor has the time to dictate to a scribe, then he or she has time to type it out himself and save the hospital the money.

I did a travel gig in an ER that used scribes.
I thought it worked great. It was a high volume ER, and it allowed docs more patient time. I saw no more errors there than anywhere else.
If I had a scribe, I could easily increase my pt load by at least 1/3.

Our docs use scribes. I think it saves time. The docs can dictate waaaaaay faster than they can type.

Our docs use scribes. They can be a help to the docs but a pain to the nurses. The nurses don't like it when the scribes make our jobs harder. Just be sensitive that the nurses have a job to do, too. If you would like clarification or more info, you can PM me. good luck.

we use scribes in our ER too, they are sooo much help to our doctors. they dont bother us nurses at all actually, like some other people have said. plus some of our doctors are a little slower than others, so they help to keep them on tract and see pts faster.

I was a scribe at a level I trauma center, while I was a nursing student. I felt that we were a very valuable member of the ER team. The doctors relied on us to be there. We did a lot and the nurses valued our presence. I had worked in that department for 4-5 years and was able to help out A LOT. I helped to expedite patients through the ER. I helped to make the physicians more productive. I updated the physician and the nurse on pertinent lab results, CT/Xray/MRI results. Receiving the dictation for physician H&Ps was the smallest part of my job honestly. The time that it took for the physician to tell me an assessment was <1 minute. At times he or she did not have to say anything to me because I would be there during the physician interview/assessment AT the bedside. During codes I did all of the documentation and the nurses frequently came to me to fill out their documentation. SO ....Yes I feel that ER physicians should use scribes and nurses should be glad to have them! It also made me a better nurse starting out.