Instead of turning to registered nurses to sort the glut of MyChart messages from patients, Penn Family Care, a practice in Philadelphia with more than 60 clinicians, handed the task to certified medical assistants, according to a May study in Annals of Family Medicine. Many health systems are already facing a nursing shortage.
The result was a 40% drop in MyChart messages going directly to primary care physicians. Medical assistants were also able to respond to the queries faster, with a two-business-day response rate of over 92% (compared to 85% for physicians). The medical assistants also indicated they enjoyed the work, while most patients accepted the team-based approach.
“We recommend consideration of a CMA- rather than an RN-driven model in settings where RN staffing limits implementation of a team-based approach to electronic patient messages,” the researchers concluded. “We encourage practices in which PCPs manage messages to adopt a team-based care model to support practice and clinician efficiency.”
