Virtual Medical Assistant Services for Jersey Community Health
When COVID hit, having a medical scribe in the room was problematic for both patient and doctor, but for different reasons. For Jersey Community Health, turning to remote scribes from ScribeEMR was a fortuitous development that is still paying off in many ways.
Jersey Community Health (JCH), in Jerseyville, IL, is a hospital network with 15 clinics that provide a wide range of integrated health and wellness services. JCH Medical Group physicians specialize in family practice, general surgery, internal medicine, orthopedics, pain, psychiatry, and wound care.
Practice Challenges
- Labor shortages caused by COVID-19 affected practitioner productivity
- Training in-person scribes, from a local college talent pool with high turnover, was a significant time investment
- Having a scribe in the room during medical exams created social distancing issues
The ScribeEMR Solution - Virtual Medical Assistants
- JCH started using ScribeEMR’s highly trained virtual medical scribes to document visits remotely
- Keeping up with charting in real time keeps physicians super-efficient and prevents burnout
- Additional ScribeEMR virtual medical assistant solutions helped with phone calls, patient check-in, insurance verifications, and other administrative workflow issues
- Remote medical scribe availability eliminated the 15% drop in practitioner productivity that occurred every time an in-person scribe called in sick
- Utilizing remote medical scribe services addressed social distancing issues and allowed physicians to have less visits with asymptomatic patients
- Using remote scribes revealed how intrusive a third party could be during an exam and paved the way for more comfortable discussions about mental health and other intimate issues
- Physician burnout decreased
- Revenue/ROI increased significantly
- ScribeEMR’s virtual medical assistants sped up appointment check-in
- Practitioners now see more patients per day without adding hours
Testimonial
“I can’t think of a better solution than outsourcing scribe services to your firm. It keeps our physicians super-efficient.” ScribeEMR people are strong, professional and have taken scribe services to a whole different level.”
─ John Giertz CMPE
V.P. Physician Service, JCH