Everything To Know About Healthcare Dashboards

Updated on August 30, 2021

Hospitals and other healthcare organizations produce data at an immense rate. This data can be overwhelming. If data is not visualized or explained carefully, it can all seem like a bunch of numbers. Dashboards come in handy when you find yourself in that situation. 

Healthcare dashboards may be less complicated but still require some knowledge on the topic. If you don’t know anything about them, you can take a look at datapine’s healthcare dashboard examples. So, here’s everything you need to know about healthcare dashboards.

What are healthcare dashboards?

Dashboards are a type of tool or health information technology that helps to visualize data. This visualization supports clinicians or managers to get a hold of the situation about the processes and outcomes. 

At the basic level, there are 2 types of dashboards, namely clinical and quality dashboards. Clinical dashboards provide information about individual clinicians by comparing them to a set standard. This information is given with the aim of improving decision-making and overall improving patient care. For example, a clinical dashboard may point out the incorrect prescribing of a certain medicine. It can do so by comparing the rate of inscription of that medicine from other clinicians with you.

Quality dashboards work on a much larger scale. They show the performance of a whole ward or even whole organizations. These dashboards are used to supervise the quality of operational decision-making, quality improvement, etc. Many organizations use quality dashboards to monitor the quality of care they are providing and also as proof of quality care their organization is providing.

What are healthcare dashboards used for?

There are a lot of uses of information provided by dashboards. Initially, this information makes it easier to understand the performance of an organization and figuring out where things can be tweaked. 

Some organizations tend to avoid these dashboards due to fear of breaches in data privacy. Instead of not using them, organizations can ensure their accessibility of this information to some trusted individuals like executives, managers, clinicians, etc. You can then use this information to improve decision-making by providing critical information without losing data privacy. 

These dashboards are mainly used for strategy analysis, strategy implementation, to review individual performances or of the whole organization, etc.

Benefits of using health dashboards

You must be wondering, there are many ways to visualize large amounts of data, but why are dashboards specifically so popular? With the ability to automate the process of reading data, dashboards have seen increased use in countries like the USA, Canada, the UK, and the Netherlands. Here are some of the benefits of using health dashboards:

  • Easily access and understand information

Dashboards allow you to see the performance of any part of your organization at a glance. You can then analyze the problem and take action accordingly. For example, a high-priority unit may have a low officials-to-patient ratio leading it to underperform. Situations like these can be caught and solved very easily, ensuring the proper working of your organization.

  • Predict regular occurring or trends

Dashboards provide graphical interpretation of data fed to it. These graphs can be used to spot trends in the behavior of every unit. If it is hindering the performance of the organization, it can be curbed with appropriate strategies.

  • Priority of data in dashboards

Dashboards are made in such a way that they only show the most essential data while hiding useless details. Analysts can surely dig deeper into the KPIs or key performance indicators if they want to. This helps find the major flaws which are affecting the overall working of the organization.

Types of healthcare dashboards

Organizations use different dashboards according to their feasibility, but mainly there are 4 types of healthcare dashboards. 

  • Healthcare organization dashboards

They are used to monitor the high-level data, i.e., overall performance of an organization. They are used when strategizing the facility and removing major flaws.

  • Patient perception dashboard

These dashboards visualize the feedback aspect. As the name suggests, it works on the data derived from the patient’s perspective. It may include satisfaction rates, waiting times, and just about anything a patient can give its opinion on.

  • Clinical dashboard

These work on the detailed working of a specific part of the facility. It works like a manager providing a monthly report to his corporate senior.

  • Donations dashboard

Hospitals like universities heavily rely upon donations. They constantly need to make a name for themselves in the market to get attractive funding. These dashboards help track incoming funds, donors, etc.

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The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.