Improving Nursing Leadership’s Usage of Real Time, Data-Driven Dashboards

The use of dashboards displaying real-time metrics has been shown to have a positive effect on patient care outcomes. A Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle was conducted to iterate the layout of an existing nursing dashboard at a regional medical center with the goal of increasing nursing’s use of the revised dashboard. A sociotechnical model was used to frame the dashboard intervention. A user-centered design approach was utilized to identify changes needed to the dashboard, which included a heuristic analysis of the dashboard, a formative analysis of the current dashboard, and a summative analysis of the revised dashboard. The changes made to the dashboard included moving metrics used most often to a more prominent location, moving metrics used least often to a less prominent location, and alphabetizing the reports available within the clinical documentation category. Education on the new dashboard was provided to nursing leadership after the Dashboard 2.0 launched. The dashboard’s usage was trended for four months before and after the redesigned dashboard was implemented to assess the impact of the change. Although the dashboard itself was viewed positively with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction improving, actual usage trended down. This decrease could have been related to other factors such as unit leadership turnover, record census, changing accreditation, and an information technology upgrade. Implications for practice include the positive impact of examining the usability of technology and the importance of using real-time data to drive decision making in nursing