SOAP note

The SOAP note (an acronym for subjective, objective, assessment, and plan) is a method of documentation employed by health care providers to write out notes in a patient's chart, along with other common formats, such as the admission note. Documenting patient encounters in the medical record is an integral part of practice workflow starting with patient appointment scheduling, to writing out notes, to medical billing. The SOAP note originated from the Problem Oriented Medical Record (POMR), developed by Lawrence Weed, MD. It was initially developed for physicians, who at the time, were the only health care providers allowed to write in a medical record. Today, it is widely adopted as a communication tool between inter-disciplinary healthcare providers as a way to document a patient’s progress. SOAP notes are now commonly found in electronic medical records (EMR) and are used by providers of various backgrounds. Prehospital care providers such as EMTs may use the same format to communicate patient information to emergency department clinicians. Physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, podiatrists, chiropractors, acupuncturists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, school psychologists, speech-language pathologists, certified athletic trainers (ATC), sports therapists, occupational therapists, among other providers use this format for the patient's initial visit and to monitor progress during follow-up care.

The four components of a SOAP note are Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan. The length and focus of each component of a SOAP note vary depending on the specialty; for instance, a surgical SOAP note is likely to be much briefer than a medical SOAP note, and will focus on issues that relate to post-surgical status.

Initially the patient's Chief Complaint, or CC. This is a very brief statement of the patient (quoted) as to the purpose of the office visit or hospitalization.

If this is the first time a physician is seeing a patient, the physician will take a History of Present Illness, or HPI. This describes the patient's current condition in narrative form. The history or state of experienced symptoms are recorded in the patient's own words. All information pertaining to subjective information is communicated to the healthcare provider by the patient or his/her representative. It will include all pertinent and negative symptoms under review of body systems. Pertinent medical history, surgical history, family history, and social history, along with current medications, smoking status, drug/alcohol/caffeine use, level of physical activity and allergies, are also recorded. A SAMPLE history is one method of obtaining this information from a patient.

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