The purpose of a Medical Scribe at Oak Street Health is to support our primary care providers with clinical documentation so that they can focus on providing exceptional care to our patients. Scribes assist providers throughout the patient care journey - huddling each morning to plan for the day's visits, joining them in the exam room to observe and document, and touching base after the visit to assist with the next steps.
Beyond the typical Scribe role, these important care team members serve as clinical documentation assistants to their paired provider. Internally, we call them CISs (Clinic Informatics Specialists) to recognize their important role in supporting accurate, specific, and timely clinical documentation. In addition to observing and documenting all patient encounters in real-time, our Scribes become experts in our value-based care model and the documentation and care of chronic conditions, including ICD-10 and CPT coding. Scribes use this expertise to help providers identify and help close care gaps. Scribes receive extensive on-the-job training in clinical workflows, value-based medicine, preventative care for chronic conditions, accurate and specific documentation, population health data streams, and team-based care.