P3B407: Parent Experience During Pediatric Medical Visits with Scribes

Background: Medical scribes can assist pediatricians with documentation for the electronic medical record. Variable patient satisfaction has been found for providers working with in-person scribes seeing adult patients. Few studies have investigated providers working with medical scribes, particularly virtual, at pediatric medical visits. The objective of this study was to evaluate parent perceptions of experiences during pediatric medical visits with presence of medical scribes (virtual or in-person) or no scribe.

Methods: A national, cross-sectional online survey was completed by parents of children 0-17 years recruited through Qualtrics panels in August 2022. The survey assessed the following experiences in the most recent pediatric visit: scribe presence (virtual, in-person or no scribe), provider/visit type, whether informed of scribe presence and asked permission to work with scribe, comfort with scribe, perception of provider communication and visit satisfaction. A generalized linear modeling approach was used to compare informed of scribe, asked permission to work with scribe, comfort with scribe, provider communication and visit satisfaction levels between scribe presence (virtual, in-person or no scribe). Analyses adjusted comfort with scribe for informed of scribe and parent birth sex and visit satisfaction and provider communication for parent education and provider type. (Tables 1, 2)

Results: A total of 2151 participants completed the survey; mean age was 36.82 years (SD = 9.11). Most identified as female (72.7%), Caucasian (74.9%) with some college education (72.7%) and 56.8% whose child was seen by a primary care pediatric provider for a well visit. About 6.4% reported a medical visit with virtual scribe presence, 25% an in-person scribe, and 68.6% no scribe. Participants who were informed of the scribe’s presence reported significantly higher comfort with scribe (p = 0.002), provider communication (p = 0.041) and visit satisfaction (p = 0.002). Participants were asked for permission for the provider to work with a scribe, reported significantly higher comfort with scribe (p = 0.011), provider communication (p = 0.019) and visit satisfaction (p = 0.008;Table 1). Significantly higher comfort with scribe was reported for participants with virtual scribe presence compared to in-person scribe (p = 0.002; Table 2). Perception of provider communication was not significantly different between participants with virtual scribe, in-person scribe and no scribe (p =0.643). Significantly higher visit satisfaction was reported among participants with virtual scribe presence compared to in-person scribe and no scribe (p < 0.001; Table 2).

Conclusion: Findings support increased parent visit satisfaction at pediatric medical visits with virtual scribe presence. Future studies are needed to further evaluate parent and pediatric patient experience during medical visits with presence of virtual, in-person or no scribe.