From an array of different health technologies (a rapidly growing market, as Digital Journal has reported) an electronic dashboard, created from a collaboration between Epic Systems Corp. and the Lehigh Valley Health Network, has won the Most Wired Innovator Award. The award is given by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine together with the American Hospital Association.
Electronic health dashboards
Hospital, medical practice and patient dashboards are designed to showcase important information in one screen, giving providers a customizable easy-to-view summary that provides easy access to information. In busy hospitals, being able to collect this information in real time is the key to reducing time and improving logistics. The website Health Informatics lists some of the advantages that stem from electronic dashboards as an improved coordination of care, clinical decision support, and decreased medication errors.
For hospitals and medical centers thinking of using dashboards, the important factors that need to be considered in advance are: database integration, the form of the visual properties, the overall purpose, what the time focus needs to be, such as retrospective, real time, or predictive; and types of medical processes to be monitored.
The Lehigh Valley Health Network example
With the Lehigh Valley Health Network case, Hospitals & Health Networks magazine reports that before the dashboard was implemented throughput data were gathered manually and written information sorted out onto a white board. This risk with this is that information can quickly become outdated. With the use of the electronic health dashboard, information is clearly displayed in readily digested tables and graphs. The visual data displays key throughput indicators, such a bed occupancy and operating room and post-anesthesia care unit volumes for the day.
The key requisites for health tech
The new technology is also relatively easy to use by nurses and hospitals assistants, overcoming a concern with some health technology that it is either not easy to use (if workforces do not possess the appropriate skills) or, for other types of medtech, not designed with the end-user – the patient – in mind.
