A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Analysis of Emergency Department Scribes
Objectives: To apply time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC) methodology to determine emergency medicine physician documentation costs with and without scribes.
Methods: Two research assistants shadowed attending physicians for a total of 64 hours in the adult emergency department. A tablet-based time recorded was used to obtain estimates for physician documentation time on both control (no scribe) and intervention (scribe) shifts.
Results: Control shifts yielded approximately 3 hours of documentation time per 8 hours of clinical time. When paired with a scribe, attending physician documentation decreased to 1 hour and 45 minutes during a shift and 15 minutes of post-shift documentation. The physician cost estimate for documentation without and with a scribe is 644 and 488 dollars, respectively.
Conclusions: TDABC methodology demonstrated that scribes afford a cost-effective solution to ED clinical documentation. The costing approach enables clinicians to understand utilization and cost of medical resource at a more granular level.
Methods: Two research assistants shadowed attending physicians for a total of 64 hours in the adult emergency department. A tablet-based time recorded was used to obtain estimates for physician documentation time on both control (no scribe) and intervention (scribe) shifts.
Results: Control shifts yielded approximately 3 hours of documentation time per 8 hours of clinical time. When paired with a scribe, attending physician documentation decreased to 1 hour and 45 minutes during a shift and 15 minutes of post-shift documentation. The physician cost estimate for documentation without and with a scribe is 644 and 488 dollars, respectively.
Conclusions: TDABC methodology demonstrated that scribes afford a cost-effective solution to ED clinical documentation. The costing approach enables clinicians to understand utilization and cost of medical resource at a more granular level.
Keywords: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing; Health Care and Treatment; Analysis;
Citation:
Kaplan, Robert S., Heather A. Heaton, David M. Nestler, William J. Barry, Richard A. Helmers, Mustafa Y. Sir, Deepi G. Goyal, Derek A. Haas, and Annie T. Sadosty. "A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Analysis of Emergency Department Scribes." Mayo Clinic Proceedings: Innovations, Quality & Outcomes 3, no. 1 (March 2019): 30–34. View Details