Ways To Prevent After-Hours Charting In Family Practices

Ways To Prevent After-Hours Charting In Family Practices

For family physicians getting work done before leaving home may seem nearly impossible. The patient visit doesn’t end the moment the patient walks out of the exam room, and many do not log off until late in the evening. A study in the Annals of Family Medicine found that physicians spend nearly six hours a day on EHR tasks, with 90 minutes of that time happening after clinic hours at home, often referred to as “pajama time”. Charting is a significant source of stress for family physicians, especially when done outside of clinical hours. However, it doesn't necessarily have to be like this. This blog post explores some of the tools and tricks that can be effective in helping family physicians regain control over time and avoid after-hours charting.

Tools And Strategies To Avoid After-Hours Charting In Family Practices

Charting Coaching Program

Dr Sarah Smith, a rural family physician and a charting coach for physicians says that she personally loved her patients and practicing medicine. But at one point she realized that she was spending her evenings doing charting and started hating her job. Further, she felt that she was missing out on some important aspects of her personal life. She took the help of a life coach who helped her get her life back. Today she is a charting coach herself and helping hundreds of physicians with her strategies to get home early will all their charting and paperwork done. Dr. Sarah suggests taking up her master class program to stop charting at night and get home early with the day’s work done. However, she says that there is no quick fix for charting issues and each physician needs a different approach.

Adopting Digital Health Technology

Dr. Noah Crampton, a family physician, advocates for the adoption of digital technologies. He suggests implementing templates, dictation tools, and pre-visit questionnaires to enhance efficiency. However, he adds that the effectiveness of the suggestions proposed by him depends on how each physician interacts with patients and how comfortable they are with using digital tools and multitasking. He also recommends automating EHR tasks in order to reduce click fatigue that contributes to burnout. Additionally, he suggests that using an AI Scribe could also be a solution for overburdened physicians. He developed an AI tool where physicians provided a template for their notes, and human scribes wrote notes in that style. Over time, the AI adapts to the physician’s preferences and produces notes that match with their style. It is important to note that human interference is still needed to ensure accuracy and maintain the quality of the notes.

Human Scribes

Human scribes assume real-time documentation within EHRs and allow family physicians to completely engage with patients and recharge when they leave work. Family physicians who take the help of scribes get to do the work they love rather than being immersed in paperwork and feeling beaten at the end of the day. Although hiring an in-person scribe didn’t cost much they needed to invest in their training. On the other hand, virtual scribes are well acquainted with different EHR systems and documentation standards, eliminating the need for any additional training. By providing real-time documentation of patient encounters, they eliminate the need for family physicians to handle real-time charting themselves. This frees them from the burden of EHR and after-hours charting, allowing them to focus more on patient care and maintain a better work-life balance. Most importantly, human scribes ensure accurate and thorough documentation, maintaining high-quality records and reducing the risk of errors.

Conclusion

Struggling with after-hours charting? Do you, as a family physician, feel that your clinical day is overwhelming and never-ending? Implementing a scribe program can be an ideal solution. By entrusting documentation tasks to scribes family physicians can reclaim valuable time to focus on patient care and personal well-being. This approach not only reduces the burden of EHR tasks but also prevents after-hours charting that contributes to burnout. It allows physicians to leave work with confidence, knowing that their charting is being taken care of. Most importantly, employing scribes helps balance work and personal life, allowing physicians to rediscover the joy of practicing medicine.

If you are looking to hire scribes, consider hiring Scribe4Me’s family medicine scribes today and reclaim your time for patient care and personal life.