Inform about diseases
Data visualization is transforming the way medicine is used. It is now used in the field of medicine to inform patients about diseases. It also allows complex medical research results to be shared with the general public in a simplified way.
“Most of the time, unless you’re a highly trained data analyst, a visualization is the best way to make the data understandable to the end user.”
-Sanket Shah, Blue Health Intelligence
Optimize patient care
The other use of dataviz in healthcare is to put data in the hands of hospital staff at all levels, from board executives to clinicians, to make decisions based on real-time data. The objectives are to improve the quality of care and patient management while optimizing costs.
The indicators observed are time spent in the emergency department, average length of hospital stays, hospital readmissions and mortality rates.
Waiting time in the Emergency Department
When emergency department capacity is exceeded, patients wait hours before seeing a doctor and even longer before being transferred to a department. Overcrowded emergency departments contribute to poor patient care and frustration for patients and families.
The Emergency Department Troughtput Analysis dashboard allows to follow the median time spent in the Emergency Department (hours) and its daily evolution. To see the proportion of patients admitted to hospital and those discharged. The monitoring of these indicators will help optimize the management of patients in the Emergency Department.
Average length of hospitalization
The average length of stay in hospital is often considered an indicator of efficiency of care. It can also reveal inefficiencies in hospital processes. Due to poor coordination between different services, people have to stay in hospital while waiting for routine care.
Monitoring of this indicator is therefore necessary to optimize the management of patients and improve organizational processes.
The Lenght of stay Analysis dashboard allows the average length of stay to be observed according to the pathologies treated and the different hospital departments.
Hospital readmissions
Hospital readmissions are a major problem for health systems in developed countries. Up to 20% of patients will be readmitted to hospital within 30 days of discharge (up to 30% when looking at 90-day readmissions).
This has an impact not only on patient safety and comfort, but also financially, as it is estimated that hospital readmissions cost approximately $26 billion per year in the United States.
Monitoring this indicator is therefore necessary to reduce the costs associated with readmissions.
The Readmission Analysis dashboard enables the monitoring of the readmission rate as well as its evolution over time. It is also interesting to follow the distribution of this readmission rate by diagnosis made as well as by patient demographics (gender, race, language spoken).
Hospital mortality rates
The development of mortality indicators allows healthcare institutions to self-evaluate, compare and improve their practices. It should also ultimately provide each citizen with reliable, understandable and useful information on the quality and safety of care in hospitals and in clinics.
However, a high mortality rate does not necessarily mean poor quality of care, some deaths are not avoidable, the seriousness of the condition of the patients treated and the complexity of the procedures performed vary greatly from one institution to another.
Generally, The Mortality Rate is observed according to diagnosis. It is also relevant to monitor the evolution of this rate according to demographic data.
To know more about …
Patient Record Dashboard Cockpit by LinPack-for-Tableau.com
Patient Stays Dashboard Cockpit by LinPack-for-Tableau.com
Tableau for Healthcare Udemy course created by Marc Connolly. (@https://twitter.com/markconnolly2)
Tableau to “See and understand your data’ in the healthcare field.
