[Gnumed-devel] What is SOAP - Why edit area suited to this

[richard terry]

Ian, I'd have to really disagree with you on the confusion of the scratch pad 
and the soap stuff. 

Totally different.

The scratch pad is an invaluable clinician oriented memory jogger where one 
puts stuff which may or may not be relevant to the clinical care of the 
patient.

SOAP stuff is far more complex (SUBJECTIVE, OBJECTIVE,ASSESSMENT,PLAN).
In this way SOAP stuff lends itself to the editing area concept and 
intelligent supply of anticipated information by the underlying database, 
based on its knowledge base and the doctors habits.

Simple example mum walks in with crying infant:

As the cursor hits the Subjective line:

 the text is auto-completed on the basis of i) the coding system and ii)the 
doctors previous use of that text. Even as the line progresses, once the 
system knows the child is febrile it will narrow down/filter to the top 
likely possibilities of symptoms based on the childs age, the preceeding 
symptom etc and this is presented in the phrase wheel.

As the cursor hits the Objective line, the system already knows to filter out 
a popup phrase wheel contining objective findings relative to an URTI and its 
complications from which typing only a couple of letters gives the line 
filled in.

Hitting enter here, will automatically pop up the most likely diagnosis which 
can off course be modified/changed to other options the system knows/has 
learnt accessible via the down arrow key.

similarly for the treatment, which of course is linked to guidelines and takes 
into account the patients age/allergies/associated illnesses/socioeconomic 
status (eg may know from previous notes not likely to take a whole course of 
ab etc, hence uses bd vs tds dose etc)

Notes:note this is a free form multi line text box!!!, as can/should be the 
plan text box, one can add other lines such as here I've thrown in Requests
===========================================
Condition |(blank here as not pre-existing illness)
Subjective|febrile 24/24;earache;left;cold
Objective |bulging red drum;left;
Assess    |acute otitis media
Plan        |ibroprofen/paracetamol;amoxycillin;review 2/52
Requests|
Notes     |?ENT referral for grommets;bla bla bla..
                bla bla bla.
===========================================
Another example
Condition|Hypertension
Subjective|Home BP's too high
Objective |155/102
Assess    |poor control
Plan        |increase ramapril to 10mg;review 1 month
Requests|Cardiac echo;24hr BP monitor;bla bla
Notes      |?stressed, fighting with wife - discuss next visit
===========================================


Anyway, thats vague enough, I've got a bad confusional migraine with 
hemi-facial pain, slurred speech, nausea etc, so I hope that makes sense.
Have to see some patients.

Bye for now

On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 06:29 pm, Ian Haywood wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 18:27:15 +0200
>
> Karsten Hilbert <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Checked in tables for tracking ongoing encounters across
> > clients which eventually became necessary for connecting the
> > single box SOAP (any widget, really) to the backend. Started
> > work on that - unfinished but see the code for where I am
> > going. Also added code to gmClinicalRecord to deal better with
> > encounters - unfinished, too, but close enough for check in.
>
> Excellent.
>
> Let me have another stab at explaining myself:
> The design under the Patient tab has a textbox
> on the left hand-side called the "scratch pad", it
> is designed for writing quick notes about a patient
> while working on something else. The idea was that
> it would never leave the screen
>
> [Aside: its functionality is somewhat
> diminished by the fact that it *can* be hidden by moving to another
> bottom-row tab, this goes back to the ad hoc nature
> of the current GUI design]
>
> IMHO, its role competes with the new SOAP widget (by the way, what does
> SOAP stand for here?) as the primary place for the freeform clinical
> narrative. I simply propose that it *be* the SOAP widget.
> (currently it is not connected and has no functionality)
>
> On another point, GNUMed still has two ways for searching for a patient:
>
> 1/ the Demographics widget
> 2/ the old way: entering a name in the top name text field and pressing the
> search icon (the little binoculars on the top row, far left side) This
> currently has been de-activated, but the code is still there.
>
> Of course I am partial to 2/ (I wrote it ;-), but I am happy with 1/, in
> which case the icon (and its handler code) should go, and the name text
> field at the top should be read-only.
>
>
> Ian
>
>
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