This page was originally created for VetView 2.0.12 in December 2020. It has been updated to reflect changes in VetView 5.0 on October 9th, 2024.
Both Episode Problems and SOAPs have been moved from being discrete Patient Record elements on their own to being part of the Catalog elements system.
This allows for more flexibility when creating the kind of SOAP forms that you want your clinical staff and students to fill out based on the kind of episode and patient that they are working with.
Please see Catalog Setup in 5.0 for details in building these new documents with the elements.
Episode Problems in a Document
To add a problem to an episode, you must first add a Document with a Problem element.
Adding a new problem from a document
Problems can be added in two formats: Either directly from a value list that your Hospital has pre-assigned to all Problems within the system, or as free text.
If your Hospital allows for free text in addition to the Problem list, you can enter anything that you want.
While you are working on the Problems for a patient, you can add and remove them as needed.
When you are done, be sure to click on the Save New Problems button to add the Problem to the official Episode Problem list.
Problems to the Master Problem List on the Visit Summary Tab
Problems that are added to the Visit Information tab on an episode will automatically be added to the Master Problem List on the Visit Summary Tab.
These problems can be manipulated on the patient record itself or on the MPL as part of differential diagnosis.
Add a Diagnosis as a Problem (5.0 and later)
If you have Diagnosis codes that are built as lower level problems for differential diagnosis, you can now access these from the Problem menu directly and treat them as problems.
Like Problems, they will be added to the Master Problem List on the Visit Summary Tab, where they can be manipulated. And on the episode, they can be SOAPed.
The Diagnosis medical record category still exists for coding purposes. This is separated from the Diagnosis Problems within the SOAP documents. Diagnosis have also had improvements in 5.0 and you can learn more about it at Episode Diagnosis in 5.0 .
Episode SOAPs
With the improvements to problems and SOAPs in 5.0, each problem can now be assigned to have its own AP independent of a holistic SO that can be applied to all problems for the patient on the same visit.
This method will reduce the amount of duplicate data entry needed to perform a full SOAP on a patient that has multiple problems.
Start SOAPing a problem within a Document
Add any document that has SOAP elements added to perform a SOAP.
If the Problem element appears at the top of the document, all four SOAP elements will be applied to each problem.
If the Problem element appears in between the SOAP elements, only the elements that appear after the problem element will be repeated for each problem. Those that appear before will be considered the same for all problems within the document.
When the document is saved without any text, it appears collapsed like this:
When the document is open for editing, you can add the text elements to each portion of the SOAP before selection the problem, as appropriate.
If the A and P elements are set to display before adding a problem, then the first problem that is added will be considered to be the problem that these elements are applied to.
As part of the improvements in 5.0, all document categories now have a basic default document template, including SOAPs. If your hospital unit has not made their own custom SOAP document, you can use the default template to add problems and SOAPs with minimal elements. You can also access all other documents within the hospital by viewing Other Options.
