A DAR note is a focus charting entry: it names one concern, then records the Data behind it, the nurse’s Action, and the patient’s Response, with the time. Copy the free template, see post-op pain, new confusion, and insulin teaching examples, and check what belongs in each part.
Blank DAR note template
FreeDAR NOTE Patient: [Full name] Date of birth: [Date] Location: [Unit, room, and bed] Date and time of entry: [Date, and the time the care happened] Late entry: [Time written, if charted after the event, or not a late entry] Nurse: [Name, credentials] FOCUS Focus: [One concern in a few words: a patient concern, a sign or symptom, a change in condition, a nursing diagnosis, an event, or a teaching need; not a medical diagnosis] Care plan link: [The care plan problem or goal this entry relates to, or none] DATA What the patient said: [Subjective data, quoted where the words matter] What you found: [Assessment findings, vital signs, and scores with the tool named] Context: [Baseline, recent medications or treatments, and what led to this entry] ACTION Nursing interventions: [What you did, with times; drug, dose, and route for any medication] Notified: [Name and role, time, what you reported, and the orders or advice received] Teaching: [What was taught, to whom, and how, such as demonstration or teach-back] Safety and comfort measures: [Precautions put in place] Reassessment due: [When, and with what measure, you will check the response] RESPONSE Time reassessed: [Time] Patient's response: [Findings after the action, using the same scale or measure as in Data] Patient's words: [What the patient said, where it shows the response] Goal: [Met, partly met, or not met, and the goal it was measured against] Next step: [Continue, change the plan, escalate, hand over, or resolve the focus] NEXT FOCUS Copy the Focus, Data, Action, and Response block for each new concern or follow-up entry. Signed: [Nurse name, credentials, date and time]
Use it for
Each one follows the template. Use them to judge how much detail every part needs.
Orthopedic surgical unit, post-op day 1, 14:10
Acute pain, right knee, after the first physiotherapy session.
68-year-old woman, post-op day 1 after a right total knee replacement under spinal anesthesia with an adductor canal block. “It’s throbbing. It feels like it’s on fire when I bend it.” Pain 8/10 on the numeric scale, up from 3/10 at 11:00; she says the numbness from the block wore off this morning. Her goal is 4/10 or lower, so she can do her exercises. Last analgesia: oxycodone 5 mg by mouth at 10:00, and scheduled acetaminophen 1,000 mg at 12:00. Grimacing, holding the knee still. T 37.4 °C (99.3 °F), HR 98, BP 148/86, RR 18, SpO2 97% on room air. POSS 1, awake and alert. Dressing dry and intact; swelling unchanged since the morning. Right foot warm and pink, pedal pulse present, capillary refill under 3 seconds, moves her toes, sensation intact. Calf soft and not tender.
Hydromorphone 0.5 mg IV at 14:15, the ordered dose for pain of 7 or more not relieved by oral medication, given after checking her breathing and sedation. Ice pack over a cloth on the knee for 20 minutes. Leg raised on a pillow under the calf, knee straight, nothing under the knee. Call bell in reach; asked her to call if she feels dizzy or very sleepy. The physiotherapist agreed to move the afternoon session from 15:00 to 16:30. Reassessment due at 14:45.
14:45, 30 minutes after the dose: pain 4/10 at rest, 6/10 bending the knee. HR 84, BP 134/80, RR 16, SpO2 96% on room air. POSS 2, slightly drowsy and easy to rouse: acceptable, no action needed. Foot warm; pulse and sensation unchanged. “That’s much better. I can manage the exercises like this.” Goal met at rest. 15:15: POSS 1, RR 16. Plan: offer the ordered oxycodone 45 minutes before tomorrow’s 09:00 physiotherapy. Focus continues.
Medical unit, night shift, 02:30
Change in condition: new confusion, with high fall risk.
84-year-old man, day 2 of admission for cellulitis of the left lower leg, on IV cefazolin. Found at 02:30 standing at the bedside, holding the IV pole: “I have to get to the bus.” At 22:00 he was oriented to person, place, and time; his wife says he has no memory problems at home and walks with a cane. Now oriented to person only, and pulling at his gown. 4AT 7: possible delirium. Diphenhydramine 25 mg by mouth given at 23:00 for sleep, as ordered. T 38.2 °C (100.8 °F), HR 104, BP 112/64, down from 128/76 at 22:00, RR 22, SpO2 94% on room air. Capillary glucose 7.4 mmol/L (133 mg/dL). Last voided at 19:00; lower abdomen full; bladder scan 640 mL. Redness on the left shin within the borders marked on admission. No fall, and no injury found on a skin check. Morse Fall Scale 75, up from 60 on admission.
Walked him back to bed and stayed with him. Bed at its lowest, bed alarm on, call bell and urinal in reach, glasses on, a low light left on. Reoriented him calmly, without arguing. In-and-out catheter at 02:50 under the unit’s urinary retention protocol: 700 mL of dark amber urine, sample kept. Called the on-call physician at 02:55 using SBAR: new confusion, fever, HR 104, a fall in blood pressure, urinary retention, and diphenhydramine at 23:00. She assessed him at 03:20. Orders: blood cultures, urinalysis and urine culture, CBC, electrolytes, creatinine, and lactate; acetaminophen 650 mg by mouth; bladder scan every 6 hours; diphenhydramine stopped, and no sedatives. Acetaminophen given at 03:30; bloods drawn at 03:35. Constant observation requested from the nursing supervisor; sitter at the bedside from 03:40. His wife phoned at 03:45, as she asked to be told of any change; she will come in at 08:00.
04:30: lying in bed, calmer, sitter at the bedside, no further attempts to get up alone. Oriented to person; thinks he is at his son’s house. T 37.6 °C (99.7 °F), HR 92, BP 118/70, RR 18, SpO2 95% on room air. Lactate 1.4 mmol/L; other results pending. No fall. Goal partly met: safe and settled, still confused. Physician updated at 04:40; no new orders. Focus continues: handed over to the day nurse at 07:15 with the sitter in place, and the 4AT and bladder scan due at 09:00.
Surgical unit, evening, 2 days before discharge
Teaching: insulin self-injection before discharge.
47-year-old man, post-op day 3 after incision and drainage of a right foot abscess. Type 2 diabetes for 6 years on metformin; A1C 10.8% this admission. The team has started insulin glargine 16 units at bedtime, to continue at home with a pen. He has never injected: “I hate needles, but I’ll do it if it saves my foot.” Reads English well, wears reading glasses, and has full use of his hands. Drives a delivery van for work. His wife wants to learn too. Glucose before supper 11.6 mmol/L (209 mg/dL).
20:30, with his wife at the bedside, using his own pen and its leaflet, taught step by step: washing hands, checking the label and that the insulin is clear, a new needle each time, a 2-unit safety test, dialing the dose, injecting into the abdomen at least 5 cm (2 inches) from the navel, counting to 10 before removing the needle, and the sharps container. Site rotation shown on a diagram. Low blood sugar: shaking, sweating, or confusion; check his sugar, and if it is below 4.0 mmol/L (70 mg/dL) or he can’t check, take 15 g of fast sugar, such as 4 glucose tablets, then recheck in 15 minutes. Check before driving, and don’t drive if it is low. Spare pens in the fridge; the pen in use at room temperature, discarded after the number of days on its leaflet. Written guide given. Teach-back used for each step.
21:00: gave his own glargine 16 units into the left abdomen, every step correct, with 1 prompt to do the safety test. His wife named the signs of low blood sugar and the 15 g treatment without prompts. He named 3 injection sites and how he will rotate them. “That was less scary than I thought.” Goal partly met: 1 prompt needed. Plan: a second return demonstration tomorrow at 21:00, without prompts, before discharge; referral to the outpatient diabetes education program sent; glucose log started. Focus continues.
The subject of the entry, in a few words. It tells the next nurse what the entry is about before they read a line, and many records give it its own column.
Avoid: A medical diagnosis. “Cellulitis” is why the patient was admitted; “new confusion” or “pain on dressing change” is what you are managing.
The subjective and objective information that supports the focus: what the patient told you, and what you found.
Avoid: Copying the whole flow sheet. Write what bears on this focus, and leave routine findings where they are already charted.
What you did about the focus, straight away, and the plan until the next check.
Avoid: Leaving out the notification details. The name, the time, and the orders show the escalation happened, and what it led to.
How the patient responded, measured and timed. It closes the loop the focus opened.
Avoid: “Tolerated well.” Write what changed, measured the same way as before, and when you checked.
When the care happened, who gave it, and how a late or follow-up entry is marked.
Avoid: Writing the Response before you’ve checked it. Leave it until the reassessment, and time it then.
A dose written under Data, or a finding under Action, makes the entry hard to follow. Data is what you found. Action is what you did.
Pain medicine works on a clock. Write when you reassessed, so a reader can see it came at the right time: often 15 to 30 minutes after an IV opioid and 30 to 60 minutes after an oral dose, or as your policy sets.
Pain, a dressing change, and family teaching in one entry hide each other. Start a new focus for each concern, so each can be followed and closed.
When the concern resolves, say so in the Response. When it carries on, hand it over. A focus left hanging looks like care stopped.
Writing that you paged the physician isn’t enough. Add the time, what you reported, the answer, and what you did next.
Dictate at the bedside or after the round. Vero Scribe writes the focus, data, action, and response in your template, with the times, doses, and scores you said. You review and edit every section, then copy it into your record or export it to Word or PDF. Vero works in 60+ languages.
A DAR note is an entry in focus charting, a method developed in the 1980s to organize nursing notes around the patient’s concerns instead of in time order. Each entry names a focus, then three parts: Data, the findings that support it; Action, what the nurse did; and Response, how the patient responded, with the time. Some organizations add a P for plan and call it DARP.
Name the focus in a few words. Under Data, write what the patient said and what you found: vital signs, scores, and the assessment behind the focus. Under Action, write what you did, with times and doses, who you told, and what you taught. Under Response, reassess with the same measure and write the result and the time. If you check the response later, add it then as a timed entry.
A patient concern or behavior, a sign or symptom, a change in condition, a nursing diagnosis such as acute pain, an event such as a fall or a transfer, or a care need such as teaching or discharge planning. Avoid a medical diagnosis: write what the nurse is managing, such as “oxygen saturation drops on walking,” not “pneumonia.”
Narrative charting tells the shift in time order, so one problem can be hard to follow. SOAPIE is problem-oriented: Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Intervention, Evaluation. DAR is shorter. Subjective and objective findings sit together under Data, interventions under Action, and evaluation under Response. A DAR focus also doesn’t have to be a problem: it can be a teaching session or an admission. PIE, another format, records Problem, Intervention, Evaluation, with the assessment kept on flow sheets.
In charting by exception, routine findings go on flow sheets against normal standards your organization defines, and only exceptions are written out. Many units write those exceptions as DAR entries: a new finding, an event, or teaching. Don’t repeat the flow sheet in the entry. Write what is new, and what you did about it.
Yes. Copy it, or download it as a Word or text file. No account needed.
System-by-system nursing assessment with pressure injury and fall risk, lines and drains, and escalation.
The shift note: assessment, timed vital signs and interventions, the response, provider calls, teaching, and the plan for the next shift.
Assessment data, nursing diagnosis, SMART outcomes, interventions with rationale, and evaluation, one diagnosis at a time.
The bedside handoff in I-PASS order: severity, systems, lines, meds due, pending labs, risks, to-dos, and read-back.
Problem, Intervention, Evaluation: numbered nursing problems carried from shift to shift, with the assessment on a flow sheet.
DAR entries, SBAR calls, and nursing notes, drafted for your review.
Progress, DAR, and SBAR note examples side by side.
Vero writes your notes and letters in the templates you choose, so you review instead of type.
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