Clinical Dashboards success

The success of Clinical Dashboards heavily depends on substantial buy-in from the clinicians accessing and using the data. The involvement of frontline clinicians ensures that the data channelled through the dashboards is relevant and that the technology is fit for purpose.

Juliane said: "When we decided to get involved in the Clinical Dashboards programme, we knew that this needed to be a clinician-led project, as it would be NHS staff that accessed and used the data.

"When we first met with NHS CFH, we already had a remit of the sort of data we needed to improve our performance and deliver better quality care.

"Working collaboratively meant that we now have a system that fits our exact requirements. Sometimes as clinicians we have to work with IT systems that have been designed by IT specialists, and that have not had patient care at the forefront of the agenda.

"The dashboards project was steered and shaped by the clinical team, which resulted in a successful project with many benefits."

The benefits of quality information in an emergency setting

By bringing together information from a range of sources, Clinical Dashboards save time and resources. This is a benefit that has been dramatically realised in the acute setting at Portsmouth Hospital.

Juliane said: "One of the main benefits of Clinical Dashboards is that they have saved time and increased productivity in the department. In a time critical environment like acute care, time and resources are essential.

"The Clinical Dashboards have brought together information from existing sources such as the MRSA data already recorded by the hospital, drug chart errors and staff shortage rates, so that we can effectively and quickly monitor the patient care being delivered by the department.

"Clinical Dashboards have helped me as a clinician as I now have more finely tuned information available to me, without having to spend valuable time sifting through different charts and graphs.

"The data available on the dashboards gives me a more accurate picture of the patient flow within the department and the quality of care that is being administered. I can now quickly look at the dashboards and use the information available to identify priorities, and delegate staff accordingly.

"Previously we had no way of monitoring and comparing staffing levels and errors so often errors were made in patient care before issues had been identified.

"The dashboards offer a preventative solution and allow the management team to track performance in a timely manner. This means that we can solve issues as they arise, making sure that we provide the best quality of care to patients and errors are reduced.

"Clinical Dashboards have also allowed the clinical team at Portsmouth to identify a correlation between staff shortages and clinical errors.

"This is the first time we have been able to show that low staff levels increase the amount of errors and, by using the dashboards, we have been able to present this information in a comprehensive and objective way.

"This is a vital issue in emergency care, as we are constantly faced with the challenge of working in a fast pace environment. By having the information readily available the team can quickly spot any potential risks and deal with them before the quality of patient care declines.

"Clinical Dashboards were a great benefit when our modern matron was asked for dependency data for a period in December. Prior to the implementation of Clinical Dashboards, this would have been a time consuming, lengthy task.

"However, with the dashboards in place, the information was available instantly, saving time and resources for the department.

"There have also being some unexpected benefits to using the Clinical Dashboards, such as the Serious Untoward Investigation (SUI) tool.

"Before we started the project we didn't envisage that this would be something we could use but since the metrics has been implemented this technology has been very useful."