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What is the SOAP approach?

Medicine is meticulous and systematic.

As doctors we’re taught from the very beginning of our training to let certain principles guide a step-wise approach to taking a case. This way you can treat anyone that walks through your door in the same manner. These principles guide healthcare notetaking and decision making, to make sure methods are repeatable and treatment is consistently effective.

It’s almost comical to an outside perspective how many jumbles of alphabet soup we use in medicine on a daily basis: “HPI”, “ROS”, “OLDCARTS”, “VINDICATE”, “ABC”, “RICE”, “FAST”, “SOCRATES”, but perhaps the most important and simple one that sticks out in any practitioner’s mind is “SOAP”.

The SOAP acronym has been used by physicians for about 50 years, and stands for “Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan”. This structural framework gives a repeatable, memorable cognitive tool to approach a patient’s concerns they bring into the office. It also guides medical documentation to follow a specific flow and order, making the notes efficient and digestible to those reading in the future.

Mid section of Caucasian male surgeon writing on medical chart in clinic at hospital
Subjective

“Subjective” refers to what the patient is telling you directly about their concern, in their words and experience. It includes chief complaint, history of the present illness, medical history, family history, social history, review of body systems, medications, allergies and more. The main concern is typically organized into a list of the most important details such as onset, location, duration, aggravation, timing, etc, but this is often stylistic to the physician writing the chart note.

Objective

“Objective” means only data that is objective. This can include vital signs in office, previous lab testing or imaging, and physical examination. For example, a patient experiencing abdominal pain is subjective, but noticeable guarding and tenderness upon palpation of a specific abdominal region is objective. Objective information is complementary to the subjective data already gathered and helps form the assessment.

Assessment

“Assessment” is the physician’s conclusion or naming of the problem. This can be a problem symptom, a differential, a working diagnosis, or the official diagnosis. It can be as simple as “abdominal pain”, or more complex like “appendicitis”.

Plan

“Plan” is the detailed summary of what to do next. It should include an outline of clinical thinking and decision making. It can list additional lab testing, a referral to a specialty, medication therapy, behavioral changes, counseling, and so much more. There may be pain medication dispensed and an abdominal ultrasound ordered to help narrow the diagnosis and further treat the problem. There may also be written steps of what to do next in treatment, timelines for how to proceed, and how to further prevent injury.

The SOAP note approach allows for an accurate assessment because it considers all subjective and objective information, and gives the desired outcome of a patient-specific plan of action.

Working inside and outside of the medical field, we’ve come to realize the beauty of the SOAP approach is that it can apply to more than just anatomy and physiology, it can be applied to most problems and concerns. So why not your business and marketing?

Just like in the exam room, we apply the SOAP principle to bring health to your brand.

We will help you discern the most important parts of the problem with your subjective data we gather from learning all about your business. We will then help you gather important, tangible data about how your marketing is working now, and establish a baseline to compare after implementing changes. We will help you name what the problem is so we can address it effectively. Then most importantly, we will help develop a plan of how to get you to your goals, and keep your business healthy.

Whether you’re concerned about starting a new business, developing your brand, or increasing  client volume — we have a plan for you.

Gossman W, Lew V, Ghassemzadeh S. SOAP Notes. [Updated 2019 Jul 11]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2019 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482263/

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