Study: Patient satisfaction increased with remote scribes
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Physicians who utilized remote scribes saw an increase in patient satisfaction compared with those who used in-person scribes, according to a study presented at the American Society of Retina Specialists meeting.
“We found that the use of remote virtual scribes resulted in a significant increase in the [net promoter scores],” Mohsin H. Ali, MD, of the Retina Group of Washington, said.
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The single-center retrospective cohort study investigated physicians who transitioned from working with in-person scribes to remote virtual scribes from March 2022 to September 2023 compared with a control group that continued to work with in-person scribes. The trial’s primary outcomes were the mean net promoter score (NPS) ratings of patient satisfaction 3 months before and 6 months after the transition and mean patient wait time.
“There were about 270,000 individual patient responses analyzed to get these numbers,” Ali said.
According to Ali, the mean NPS for “likelihood of recommending physician” increased from 9.34 to 9.44 after the transition to remote virtual scribes (P = .008), while mean NPS for “likelihood of recommending practice” improved from 9.54 to 9.60 (P < .001).
There were no significant changes in patient satisfaction scores in the control group, Ali said.
Mean wait times decreased in the remote virtual scribe group for both the waiting room (14.88 minutes to 13.41 minutes, P < .001) and the exam room (22.89 minutes to 21.22 minutes, P < .001). In the control group, mean wait times increased for the waiting room (11.12 minutes to 12.65 minutes, P < .001) and decreased for the exam room (28.49 minutes to 25.88 minutes, P < .001).
“The improvements in NPS ratings and patient wait times for physicians who transitioned to remote or virtual scribes suggests that the patient satisfaction and wait times may improve following the successful implementation of a remote scribe program,” Ali said. “We estimated that based on the mean decreased wait time observed in our study, an implementation of a remote scribing program in a hypothetical retina clinic with, let’s say, 40 patients a day could save the physician about 58.8 minutes a day.”
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Ali MH, et al. Differences in patient satisfaction scores before and after implementation of remote scribes. Presented at: American Society of Retina Specialists annual meeting; July 17-20, 2024; Stockholm.
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