What are SOAP Notes?
There are two types of notes to be aware of. Regular Notes and SOAP Notes. Both are private, ensuring that customers cannot view them. SOAP Notes allow you to track important customer-specific information without compromising privacy.
This video will show how with SOAP Notes, you can:
Upload Attachments
Use the Annotation Tool
Lock a Note
Use a Template
Duplicate a Note
Not seeing SOAP Notes as an option to use?
Check that you're signed in as a user with a role that has the soap notes permissions enabled. That should then show the option.
Roles can be updated from Settings > Staff Management > Roles > Permissions > scroll to SOAP notes and enable 'view' and 'manage'.
What's the difference?
Regular Notes are general-purpose notes for recording customer-related information, such as preferences, feedback, or details about previous interactions.
SOAP Notes are structured notes used for documenting customer interactions or sessions using the SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) framework. This framework categorizes observations, evaluations, and planned actions. SOAP Notes are often used to keep medical-related records for physiotherapy or other health-related services.
Each note can be associated with a specific customer-related entity, such as:
Classes
Appointment reservations
Other related entities (details provided in later sections)
Access and Manage your Notes
Notes related to specific customers can be accessed and managed on the customer detail page (to get here, click Customers > Customer List > select a customer). You can view all notes assigned to a specific customer, add new notes and manage existing ones, including actions such as editing and deleting.
Regular notes
Regular notes are used for general-purpose information about customers. They provide flexibility in documenting details that may or may not be directly tied to a customer-related entity.
Regular notes can exist without any customer-entity relationship or can be associated with the following entities:
Appointments: For recording notes about specific appointments.
Classes: For documenting class-related information.
Memberships: For maintaining membership-specific details.
Products: For capturing product-related customer notes.
SOAP Notes
SOAP Notes are designed to document structured information related to medical or health-related customer records. These notes are always linked to a specific customer-related entity and cannot exist independently.
SOAP Notes must be associated with one of the following entities:
Appointments: For tracking health-related details during specific appointments.
Classes: For documenting information relevant to class participation, such as in fitness or therapy sessions.
Each customer-related entity can only have one SOAP Note associated with it. This restriction ensures that all relevant information for a specific entity, such as an appointment or class, is consolidated within a single note.
These notes utilize the SOAP framework, which organizes information into the following categories:
Subjective: Details reported by the customer, such as symptoms or concerns.
Objective: Observable data, such as measurements or assessments made during the session.
Assessment: Analysis or evaluation based on the subjective and objective data.
Plan: Recommendations or actions to be taken as a follow-up.
SOAP notes are implemented as additional app that has to be activated in settings first. Additionally, only host staff members with specific privileges can view or manage SOAP Notes. This ensures that sensitive medical records are handled securely and only by authorized personnel.
You can control which of your staff roles have access to SOAP Notes from Settings > Staff Management > Roles > select the role to change > search for 'soap.'
SOAP Notes Attachments
You can even upload images and make annotations (see video above), highlighting specific areas with drawings and text.
Important: Both the SOAP note text and image annotations are encrypted to ensure data security. However, the images themselves are NOT encrypted. As a result, uploaded images should not contain any sensitive data. Instead, you are encouraged to only upload generic diagrams, such as diagrams of the human body.
Lock a SOAP Note
SOAP Notes can be locked to prevent further changes. A locked SOAP Note can no longer be edited or deleted, ensuring the integrity of the recorded information.
Can I unlock a locked note?
Currently, there is no option to unlock a SOAP Note once it has been locked. This feature is particularly useful for preserving finalized records, such as medical documentation or session summaries, where any alterations could compromise their accuracy or validity.
Use a Template to save time
Streamline the creation of SOAP Notes by using templates. Templates allow you to predefine the structure and content of a SOAP Note, making it easier to quickly create new notes with consistent formatting and information. Templates can be accessed via settings. They can also be accessed directly from the SOAP Note creation dialog.
A SOAP Note template can include:
Note Body: Pre-filled text for the subjective, objective, assessment, and plan sections.
Uploaded Images: Generic diagrams or images (without annotations) that can be reused across multiple notes.
Duplicate an existing SOAP Note
When creating a new SOAP Note, you can select an existing SOAP Note to use as a template. The selected note will be duplicated to pre-fill the new note, including its note body and any uploaded images (with existing annotations). This functionality allows hosts to efficiently create similar SOAP Notes for recurring sessions or cases, saving time and ensuring consistency in documentation.