Top 12 Scribe Skills to Put on Your Resume
In today’s hiring rush, a standout scribe blends sharp technical know-how with calm, patient-facing poise. The right skills on your resume signal speed, accuracy, and trust. Below, the essentials—polished for 2025—so hiring teams see you as the person who keeps charts clean, clinicians moving, and patients protected.
Scribe Skills
- Fast Typing
- EHR Proficiency
- Medical Terminology
- HIPAA Compliance
- Epic Systems
- Cerner PowerChart
- Detail-Oriented
- Multitasking
- Clinical Documentation
- Microsoft Office
- Patient Confidentiality
- EMR Navigation
1. Fast Typing
Fast typing for a scribe means turning speech into text quickly and cleanly, without sacrificing accuracy—so the record breathes as the visit happens.
Why It's Important
Real-time documentation only works if you can keep up. Fast, accurate typing prevents missed details, keeps notes current, and reduces after-visit backlog.
How to Improve Fast Typing Skills
Practice daily with timed drills and accuracy-first goals. Use proper posture and home-row technique. Learn system-approved shortcuts and text expanders, but stick to clinic-approved abbreviations only. Track errors, then target them. Build muscle memory by transcribing mock encounters with medical vocabulary.
How to Display Fast Typing Skills on Your Resume
2. EHR Proficiency
EHR proficiency is the ability to navigate, enter, and retrieve patient data swiftly and precisely in an Electronic Health Record—while honoring privacy, clinical guidelines, and local workflow rules.
Why It's Important
Strong EHR skills lift the whole care team. Notes get finished, orders are clear, information is where clinicians expect it, and patient care moves without friction.
How to Improve EHR Proficiency Skills
Get formal training and revisit it after a few weeks of on-the-job use. Practice in a sandbox if available. Learn templates, order sets, filters, and search tools. Memorize common keyboard shortcuts. Create safe, reusable snippets tailored to each provider’s style. Review release notes so updates don’t trip you up. Ask providers for feedback and adjust your workflow.
How to Display EHR Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
3. Medical Terminology
Medical terminology is the shared language of anatomy, conditions, tests, and treatments. For scribes, it’s the backbone of clear, concise, and correct documentation.
Why It's Important
Precision avoids ambiguity. Correct terms sharpen histories, assessments, and plans, helping clinicians make faster, safer decisions.
How to Improve Medical Terminology Skills
Study root words, prefixes, and suffixes so unfamiliar terms become decipherable. Read real notes and compare your interpretations with provider feedback. Use flashcards and spaced repetition. Write short practice HPIs and A/Ps with new vocabulary. Pair terms with clinical context—lab values, imaging, and exam findings—to lock in meaning.
How to Display Medical Terminology Skills on Your Resume
4. HIPAA Compliance
HIPAA compliance means protecting patient health information—confidential, intact, and accessible only to those who need it for care or operations.
Why It's Important
Trust and law, both on the line. Proper handling of PHI keeps patients safe, organizations compliant, and you out of trouble.
How to Improve HIPAA Compliance Skills
Take recurring privacy and security training. Follow the minimum necessary rule. Lock screens, badge out, and keep voices down in public areas. Use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication where required. Never store PHI on personal devices. Report suspected incidents immediately. Document only in approved systems, and double-check recipient lists before sending anything.
How to Display HIPAA Compliance Skills on Your Resume
5. Epic Systems
Epic is a widely used EHR platform. Scribes use it to capture histories, exams, assessments, and plans; to review prior notes; and to support safe, efficient care.
Why It's Important
So many hospitals run on Epic. If you’re fluent, ramp-up time shrinks and your documentation quality climbs fast.
How to Improve Epic Systems Skills
Build and refine SmartPhrases, SmartLinks, SmartLists, and SmartTexts with provider input. Learn Chart Search and Preference Lists. Master common navigation and keyboard shortcuts. Keep personal dot-phrases tidy and versioned. Practice structured templates for frequent visit types, and audit your notes for accuracy and consistency.
How to Display Epic Systems Skills on Your Resume
6. Cerner PowerChart
Cerner PowerChart (now part of Oracle Health) is an EMR used to document and manage patient data. Scribes rely on it for real-time charting and information retrieval.
Why It's Important
Healthcare networks using Oracle Health expect speed without errors. Knowing PowerChart’s workflows lets you deliver clean notes and smoother visits.
How to Improve Cerner PowerChart Skills
Customize patient lists and toolbars. Use AutoText and macros for repeatable content. Learn PowerForms, Dynamic Documentation, and PowerPlans. Memorize shortcuts for common actions. Keep templates aligned with provider preferences and update them when workflows change.
How to Display Cerner PowerChart Skills on Your Resume
7. Detail-Oriented
Being detail-oriented means you capture the whole picture—precise, thorough, complete—without letting small but crucial facts slip away.
Why It's Important
In clinical notes, tiny errors can mislead. Accuracy preserves clinical intent, supports safe care, and keeps records audit-ready.
How to Improve Detail-Oriented Skills
Practice active listening and summarize back key facts. Use structured note frameworks and checklists. Verify patient identifiers, dates, doses, and units. Review and proof before signing. Minimize distractions, batch similar tasks, and highlight unresolved items to close the loop.
How to Display Detail-Oriented Skills on Your Resume
8. Multitasking
For scribes, multitasking is deft task switching—listening, clarifying, and charting—without dropping accuracy or composure.
Why It's Important
Clinics move fast. You handle documentation while tracking orders, past history, and follow-ups, all in stride.
How to Improve Multitasking Skills
Prioritize ruthlessly—urgent first, important next. Time-box tasks and use short focus sprints. Set up your workspace to reduce clicks and scrolling. Learn provider rhythms so you anticipate needs. Practice switching with intent: finish a micro-task, then move. Keep a quick-capture list so nothing evaporates.
How to Display Multitasking Skills on Your Resume
9. Clinical Documentation
Clinical documentation captures the story: history, exam, data, assessment, and plan. Clear, specific, and timely.
Why It's Important
Good notes guide care, support coding, and tell the next clinician exactly what happened and why.
How to Improve Clinical Documentation Skills
Use structured templates for HPI, ROS, PE, and MDM—but avoid blind cloning. Be specific with diagnoses (ICD-10 detail), severity, and linkage between findings and decisions. Timestamp key events. Reflect physician reasoning in MDM. Validate meds, allergies, and problem lists. Seek regular feedback and review charts against local standards.
How to Display Clinical Documentation Skills on Your Resume
10. Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office (now largely delivered as Microsoft 365) includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook—core tools for documents, data, and communication.
Why It's Important
Scribes draft templates, track data, and coordinate messages. Strong Office skills cut friction and save time.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
In Word, master styles, headings, and Quick Parts for reusable text. In Excel, learn tables, filters, formulas, and pivots for quick analysis. In Outlook, set rules, categories, and quick steps to tame inbox chaos. Create templates for routine reports. Learn common keyboard shortcuts across apps and customize the Ribbon for your most-used actions.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
11. Patient Confidentiality
Patient confidentiality is the duty to keep personal and medical information private, shared only with authorized people for legitimate purposes.
Why It's Important
Privacy builds trust. It’s an ethical obligation and a legal requirement. Break it and care suffers.
How to Improve Patient Confidentiality Skills
Speak quietly in shared spaces and avoid discussing cases outside need-to-know channels. Log out or lock screens every time you step away. Use privacy screens if needed. Keep paperwork secure; shred when finished. Confirm recipients before sending messages. Know your organization’s policies and follow the minimum necessary standard.
How to Display Patient Confidentiality Skills on Your Resume
12. EMR Navigation
EMR navigation is moving through an electronic record with speed and intention—finding, entering, and updating the right data without wandering.
Why It's Important
When the record bends to your will, clinicians move faster, patients wait less, and errors shrink.
How to Improve EMR Navigation Skills
Customize views, columns, and default filters. Learn keyboard shortcuts and search operators. Build templates and macros for common visit types, tuned to each provider. Use dual monitors where allowed to compare prior notes, labs, and imaging while documenting. Consider approved voice tools if your environment supports them, and keep your workflows consistent.
How to Display EMR Navigation Skills on Your Resume
