Introduction
The dashboard is a type of medical information technology that is used by healthcare providers to make decisions by exploring and viewing data which is compiled from multiple sources into one view. The technology is classified into two: quality dashboards and clinical dashboards. Clinical dashboards provide feedback to individual clinicians on their performances compared to standards which help improve patient care. Quality dashboards show performance for the whole organization, helping them make informed decisions. This essay discusses dashboard roles in healthcare quality and performance improvement. Additionally, it explores the information represented in the technology and design guidelines that are considered for successful development and meaningful use.
Discussion
Dashboards play major roles in healthcare quality and performance improvement in healthcare facilities. They help in conducting client satisfaction surveys which is crucial for strategy development. The Linkert scale can be used in measuring customer satisfaction levels: strongly agreed, satisfied, no opinion, and less satisfied (Zhuang et al., 2022). A patient can tick on the area they feel speaks volumes on the level of their gratification. From this survey, organizations can adopt a plan on how to make improvements. Moreover, the surveys help evaluate project performance in a given duration. Traditionally, medical organizations had difficulties in tracking project performance and consequent comparisons. Therefore, the use of dashboards by organizations has led to projects’ effectiveness and productivity since they provide information in one view.
Different information is represented in the dashboards as healthcare information technology. The technology keeps track of organization performance by collecting data on how customers feel about the services they get within a given period. This survey can be conducted via emails, phone calls, questionnaires, and in-person interviews. Dashboards also contain medical records information from the patients who visit the organization. Medical records are used to keep track of events and transactions between patients and healthcare providers (Dixit et al. 2020). The data is automatically and accurately corrected since the recorded data is from the healthcare providers and the patient. Electronic health records (EHR) is the major technological system that is used to store data and healthcare organizations. Vital records are also found in dashboards which includes collected by the national vital system and are maintained by local government and state. The information included in the vital is births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and fetal accidents.
Design Guidelines
Some of the design guidelines I would consider for successful development and meaningful use include designing around a single goal. It is important to understand and do research on what your user’s goal is. This will help to avoid mixing users’ goals and questions to remove ambiguity. Moreover, the use of color in a meaningful way is another dashboard design guideline I would consider since a dashboard is always loaded with information and data. Therefore, excessive information on dashboards can be distinguished by different colors for ease of accessibility (Pestana et al. 2020). Furthermore, the right visualization method is a guideline that should consider creating a meaningful dashboard. The users of the dashboard should not try so hard to figure out the interface of a graph or a chart. While dashboards are beneficial to healthcare organizations various improvements are inevitable.
Conclusion
Hospitals and other medical organizations benefit from the development of dashboards. Technology helps corporations gather the information that is crucial for growth and profitability. Customer satisfaction level surveys allow organizations to adopt effective strategies for service improvement. Although the technology is advantageous integration of distinguishing colors, aligning the technology with organizational goals, and integrating the right visualization can improve its effectiveness.
References
Dixit, R. A., Hurst, S., Adams, K. T., Boxley, C., Lysen-Hendershot, K., Bennett, S. S., & Ratwani, R. M. (2020). Rapid development of visualization dashboards to enhance situation awareness of COVID-19 telehealth initiatives at a multihospital healthcare system. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 27(9), 1456-1461.
Pestana, M., Pereira, R., & Moro, S. (2020). Improving health care management in hospitals through a productivity dashboard.Journal of Medical Systems, 44(4), 1-19.
Zhuang, M., Concannon, D., & Manley, E. (2022). A framework for evaluating dashboards in healthcare.IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 28(4), 1715-1731.