The Impact of Interprofessional Education and Practice on Medical Scribe Success Working in the Emergency Department

Medical scribes assist health care providers with medical documentation, thus freeing providers' time for clinical work. In 2015, Grand Valley State University (GVSU) partnered with Helix Scribe Solutions (HSS) to educate medical scribes with classroom and clinical training, including interprofessional education (IPE) created by the Midwest Interprofessional Education and Research Center. This study explored the impact of an academic scribe training program, including the effect of IPE on scribe student perceptions of teamwork and to determine the factor(s) associated with scribe documentation recording accuracy. From August 2016 to October 2018, 196 students consented to participate. Students were asked to complete the Interprofessional Education Perception Scale (IEPS) and Entry Level Interprofessional Questionnaire (ELIQ) tools before and after their educational program. Differences between overall pre- and post-questionnaires were significant (p<0.05). IEPS subscales, Perception of Need for Cooperation, Perception of Actual Cooperation, and Understanding Others' Values were significant (p<0.05). The ELIQ subscale Interprofessional Interaction showed significant positive scoring (p<0.05). Program evaluations showed the curriculum prepared the students to work in emergency department interprofessional teams. Logistic regression modeling indicated that students' grade point average was significant in predicting whether a scribe would have fewer deficiencies per chart on average as scribe employees.