A dashboard can be described as a business tool that is used to keep a check and track on Key Performance Index (KPI's), data, or other important, relevant points to business, process or a department. With the help of better and improved visualization, a dashboard helps people and businesses to understand complex information of current performances in a more straightforward manner.
Critical Need for Dashboards in Healthcare Industries
What we need to understand is the definition of business dashboards is different as it plays distinct roles in different industries. Because data dashboards are used for diverse purposes, therefore, the definition of each one differs.
Let's talk about dashboards in a particular industry, the health sector, for example. There have been evident signs of digital revolutions taking place over the past few years in the health sector's usage of dashboards. Dashboards used in the health industry are known as 'healthcare dashboards' or 'clinical dashboards.'
A healthcare dashboard is a tool that provides an interactive way of monitoring healthcare KPI'S. A basic example would be the dashboards used in the hospital that allow different healthcare professionals to look, evaluate a patient's condition in real-time, and look for alternate ways to increase overall performance and health. Since the data collected by the hospital is massive, data intelligence for healthcare would be a preferred option to opt for.
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Four Types of Health Care Dashboards
Healthcare Organization Dashboard
This kind of dashboard is used to submit data to the executive authority in the hierarchy. Department performances, admission details, and other financial information are included in this.
Patient Perception Dashboard
As self-explanatory as the name is, it describes all the details of the patient that was admitted to the hospital or came looking for care. From wait time to satisfaction level of the patients, everything is included in this dashboard. The staff uses elements like surveys to gain results.
Clinician Dashboard
This kind is used when providing information about the situation on a particular floor. Floor managers/nurses are responsible for taking care of this dashboard and for keeping it updated.
Donations Dashboards
Just as many NGOs and Universities, many hospitals are operating on donations as well. This dashboard is developed especially to track donations received, of all the donors, future cash problems, and other such relevant cases.
A few years ago, dashboards were not as essential and advanced as compared to nowadays. Most people call this a 'digital revolution' of the usage of dashboards as people have started to understand its importance in our industries. Many entrepreneurs use Style Intelligence to develop overwhelming visualization dashboards and mash-up engines together for more efficient output.
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Reasons & Benefits of Digital Dashboard Usage
The biggest reason for the digital revolution of dashboard usage is because of the increased awareness of their importance in our businesses. Alongside being an integral part of our work life, the amount of benefits it provides is the root cause of its digital revolution. When we talk about the health industry, in particular, the amount of data and information that the hospitals have makes it very hard to keep a track off. Revolutionizing the dashboard and using it to translate data is very important. When asked about the most important reason of the Digital Revolution of Dashboard, Jonathan Kucharski, a senior manager at an organization in the health industry, had the following to say:
"By implementing healthcare dashboard reporting, employees in various positions can all access the same data and understand how it affects their department. In a complex industry like healthcare, being able to make more informed decisions is a vital part of a successful business strategy."
Examples of healthcare dashboards have already been discussed; the following are the reasons as to why there had to be a revolution in dashboard usage.
a) Organizing workload
As the world is becoming a global village and has gotten digitalized, expectations from a single human to do multiple works have decreased. Machines have eased our workload. There was a need to do the same in the health industry. A single person was expected to measure the nursing rate, availability of beds, as well as to calculate the patient loads. The clinical dashboard was revolutionized to take care of all of these things and plans staffing needs as-well.
b) Time management
Remember the time where you had to wait in lines to fill certain forms before you had to meet someone or even to get someone admitted to the hospital? The existence of hospital dashboards has enabled hospitals to adopt a more digital twinning approach to enhance productivity with decreased times, which has helped a lot of patients as well as the staff.
c) Ensuring a proper system
There used to be a time when the patients used to come to the hospital to make an appointment physically. They had to wait for hours to do so, and vice versa, when the doctors used to be available, and the patients had forgotten their appointments. For an efficient system, patient and physician dashboards are two separate tools designed specifically for this purpose. All key information in regards to the patient is present in the patient dashboards. The Physician dashboard provides confidential comparisons between registered physicians and their statistics and availability.
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e) Assessing Risks
The need to observe, analyzes, and solve complex issues has always been a priority in every organization. In order to realize the risks before it gets a little out of hands, quality, and risk management dashboards had been developed. Their main motive is to assess, identify, and reduce risk to patients, the staff, and the whole community as a whole. Experienced professionals and an Australian master are needed to understand the need to develop such dashboards.
f) Keeping Up with the Doctor's Available Data
There are multiple doctors in a hospital, each of them having different statistics and different availabilities. The doctor's scorecard is a dashboard that was introduced to keep all of this information in one place. You can check on any doctor's wait time, patient load, and other information by just one click. You can even leave messages for the doctors to see concerning appointments and related information. This has helped keep doctor's data, and information stays in one place, accessible to all.
g) Interactive Health-care Dashboards
The next step.
Discussion support tools such as health-dashboards have become more interactive over time. They are an essential part of increasing outcomes, with better real-time data and other essential information that allows managers and other respected personnel in order to make better decisions. Having a data warehouse and dashboards has made it easier to read and evaluate a company's overall status and conditions. Dashboards facilitate decision making as well as make it easier for companies to understand and solve their problems in an efficient way.
Take-Home Message
The importance of the application of dashboards in organizations should be taught to students at an earlier stage of their education so it can be applied in practice when the students become professionals.