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Working on the ground in South Florida emergency rooms since 2005, Fernando G. Mendoza, MD, quickly saw gaps in the system he yearned to fill. The challenges he experienced as a newly Board-certified pediatric emergency physician in the mid-2000s are closely aligned with the challenges seasoned doctors today still experience in the healthcare setting: the patient workload of the day extending far beyond treating patients.
After each patient encounter, doctors must chart the visit, recalling the details of the interaction-conversations, scan results, analyses, diagnosis, and referrals, for written inclusion on the patient’s medical record. Charting is essential, a non-negotiable in the healthcare setting, as it adds to the patient’s medical history which each of the patient’s new physicians will be guided by to treat that patient. The challenge – with staffing limitations, physicians have increased levels of both stress and pressure in already tense work life, especially in high-traffic emergency rooms with little downtime to chart. Seeing patient after patient in a fast pace setting until the end of their shifts, emergency physicians must often work after the hours of their already intensive shifts to cover the administrative aspect of the job.
“As an emergency room physician, I see the help that physicians need firsthand,” said Dr. Mendoza. “I knew I had to find a solution that would ease the workload of physicians. My goal was to improve the quality of care delivered to patients and the quality of life to physicians experiencing the burden of electronic health record requirements.”
In 2014, Dr. Mendoza founded Scrivas, a leading medical scribe company training and placing medical scribes in hospital emergency departments, urgent cares, private practices, in-patient hospitals and ambulatory care practices across South Florida. Scrivas’ medical scribes are trained by ScrivasU – Dr. Mendoza’s proprietary ‘mini med-school for medical scribes’ to learn medical terminology, healthcare processes, patient charting, bedside manner, and more. Scrivas brings a classroom setting to scribes-in-training and access to top medical educators in the region. Once trained, the agency’s medical scribes are placed at the side of physicians and patients with the sole responsibility of charting or taking proper note of the entire patient interaction.
Scrivas’ medical scribes, primarily young professionals interested in medical or health-related careers, are armed with practical training in the basics of healthcare and real-world experience by working alongside doctors in the ER during their placements. For medical students, the edge of having guided work experience in the healthcare setting can be the driving force to define their interests in the broad world of healthcare. For one alumna, Scrivas was the launchpad she needed to help her launch her medical career.
While in her Public Health Master’s program, Dr. Diana Abreu-Molnar knew she wanted to pursue a career in medicine but was unsure on the route she would take – either an accelerated nursing program or medical school, when she stumbled across Scrivas and gave it a try. Dr. Abreu-Molnar completed her internship and residency locally at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital and has been working as a Board-certified pediatrician in the Miami area for the past 4 years.
“Scribing for Scrivas gave me an advantage when I started medical school,” said Dr. Abreu-Molnar. “I had a lot of the clinical knowledge down from being in the ER… I was familiar with the medications – the brand names to the generics, I knew the medical codes, and I was able to network.”
For Dr. Mendoza, the success stories of Scrivas’ medical scribes are not just a win for the company, but a win for him, making a positive impact on the healthcare community and helping to nurture the next generation of healthcare professionals.
