Initiative to improve quality of paediatric ward-round documentation by application of ‘SOAP’ format

BACKGROUND: Audits on record keeping practices at our multidisciplinary hospital revealed unstructured ward-round notes which were dissimilar from each other on aspects of patient information. Written as per the discretion of the rounding physician, the practice compromised team communication and medicolegal safety and risked patient harm. Paediatricians decided to address this concern for their department and proposed to improve the quality of documentation by structuring their notes using subjective, objective, assessment and planning (SOAP) format. On observing only 13% compliance with SOAP use despite education and training to use it, a series of interventions were explored to increase its application. METHODS: Brainstorming sessions with the paediatricians provided practical solutions. These were tested one by one using plan–do–study–act cycles to understand their impact. Team feedback was pursued towards the end of each cycle to understand the opinion of each team member. INTERVENTIONS: Interventions included verbal reminders, individual feedback and SOAP acronym display. Each of these were tested singularly and serially. Acronym display proved successful until the arrival of COVID-19, which disrupted its implementation and redirected paediatricians’ work priorities. This led to exploration of a new solution, and paediatricians recommended use of visual reminders at the handover site. Quantitative information was analysed to reject or retain the ideas. RESULTS: Verbal reminders and individual feedback made no difference to SOAP usage. Acronym display improved compliance from 13% to 90% but it fell to 45% during COVID-19. Its replacement with visual reminders during pandemic times reinstated the compliance to a median of 84%. CONCLUSIONS: Selection of a change idea that respected front liner’s constraints and suited local work environment proved valuable. Both acronym display and visual reminders served as visual reinforcements towards embracing a note format and proved effective. Perceived benefits from methodically written notes encouraged paediatricians to re-establish simpler measures to retain SOAP application, otherwise disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic.