TY - JOUR
T1 - The emergence of new data work occupations in healthcare
T2 - The case of medical scribes
AU - Bossen, Claus
AU - Chen, Yunan
AU - Pine, Kathleen
N1 - Funding Information:
We hereby declare that the submitted manuscript is original, has not been submitted to any other journal, nor published elsewhere partly or as a whole. This research has been supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science , Denmark through the International Network Program, ref. no. 6144-00071 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - Purpose: Increasing demand for more and better documentation as well as digitalization of healthcare entail shifts in competencies and roles of healthcare occupations and professions. As a result of this data-centric technological development, new kinds of work and occupations emerge of which medical scribes are an example. To investigate and provide a case of an emergent occupation focused on ‘data work’ we describe the emergence, growth and stabilization of medical scribes, outline their history and provide a literature overview. Method: We conducted a review of the literature on medical scribes in academic journals until 2017. These publications are categorized according to the country of study, medical specialization, method, focus, attitude to the use of medical scribes, and the reasons given for the use of medical scribes. We outline the history of the emergence of medical scribes and provide a summary of the existing research publications on medical scribes. Findings: We identified 60 papers of which a majority are based on cases from the USA; conducted in emergency departments; based on quantitative methods; focus on economic feasibility and satisfaction; are positive towards the use of medical scribes; and link the use of medical scribes to the implementation of electronic health records (EHR). There is a distinct lack of research on medical scribes themselves and their interaction with physicians, patients, and EHR. Conclusions: Medical scribes have emerged as a new data-work occupation as a response to increased demands for documentation and digitalization through EHRs. Research on medical scribes has hitherto focused on efficiency and economic feasibility of scribes, and there is a need to look into the interaction of medical scribes with physicians and patients as well as look at opportunities for redesign of EHR. More generally, there is a need to look beyond the most prominent professions such as physicians and nurses in discussions of digitization and datafication of healthcare, and investigate how new and previous tasks are (re)distributed between occupations and professions.
AB - Purpose: Increasing demand for more and better documentation as well as digitalization of healthcare entail shifts in competencies and roles of healthcare occupations and professions. As a result of this data-centric technological development, new kinds of work and occupations emerge of which medical scribes are an example. To investigate and provide a case of an emergent occupation focused on ‘data work’ we describe the emergence, growth and stabilization of medical scribes, outline their history and provide a literature overview. Method: We conducted a review of the literature on medical scribes in academic journals until 2017. These publications are categorized according to the country of study, medical specialization, method, focus, attitude to the use of medical scribes, and the reasons given for the use of medical scribes. We outline the history of the emergence of medical scribes and provide a summary of the existing research publications on medical scribes. Findings: We identified 60 papers of which a majority are based on cases from the USA; conducted in emergency departments; based on quantitative methods; focus on economic feasibility and satisfaction; are positive towards the use of medical scribes; and link the use of medical scribes to the implementation of electronic health records (EHR). There is a distinct lack of research on medical scribes themselves and their interaction with physicians, patients, and EHR. Conclusions: Medical scribes have emerged as a new data-work occupation as a response to increased demands for documentation and digitalization through EHRs. Research on medical scribes has hitherto focused on efficiency and economic feasibility of scribes, and there is a need to look into the interaction of medical scribes with physicians and patients as well as look at opportunities for redesign of EHR. More generally, there is a need to look beyond the most prominent professions such as physicians and nurses in discussions of digitization and datafication of healthcare, and investigate how new and previous tasks are (re)distributed between occupations and professions.
KW - Data work
KW - Digitization
KW - Electronic Health Records
KW - Emerging occupations
KW - Medical scribes
KW - Skill-mix
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.01.001
DO - 10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2019.01.001
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30654906
AN - SCOPUS:85059663379
SN - 1386-5056
VL - 123
SP - 76
EP - 83
JO - International Journal of Medical Informatics
JF - International Journal of Medical Informatics
ER -