Potential of medical scribes to allay the burden of documentation and enhance efficiency in Australian emergency departments

The increasing burden of documentation experienced by doctors threatens the efficiency in EDs and increases the likelihood of documentation errors. Medical scribes afford the opportunity to allay this burden by removing a large component of the doctors' documentation task. Scribes have been embedded successfully in US EDs, and the effects have been mostly advantageous. The present paper provides a brief overview of the function of scribes and their potential contribution to Australian EDs.