Nursing Dashboards to Improve Productivity in Nursing

Purpose:
The development of a nursing dashboard enhances productivity of the nurse by providing a real time audit of the critical assessments required on each patient. This helps meet both regulatory compliance as well as ensure pertinent clinical data is captured on all patients.

Significance:
As more and more data is required at the point of care, it becomes more and more cumbersome for nursing to know what is a 'must have' on each patient. The use of the nursing dashboard provides a succinct view for each patient showing key assessments and interventions required.

Strategy and Implementation:
A prototype of a dashboard was developed using advanced technology within the EMR software. The dashboard captured a done/not done view of Skin, Fall, Pain, DVT and Sepsis screenings from the Electronic Medical Record. Missing data was highlighted and would link the nurse to the area where the information needed updating. The dashboard was piloted at a busy community magnet hospital that had been live on their EMR for several years, yet still struggled with ensuring key information was captured on all patients. The pilot helped determine what information was most useful to nursing and in what format through a shared governance model. Different iterations of the dashboard (ie admission view, Daily view, Discharge view) were created. Nursings assessments of the dashboard along with pre and post measurements of the compliance in capturing specific information were used to determine the usefulness. (the project is still in progress)

Evaluation:
Success will be measured with nursing perceptions of user friendliness as compared with not having the dashboards. In addition, a measurement of compliance with both NDNQI as well as TJC data will be analysed

Implications for Practice:
This tool can help improve real time data capture for elements associated with more positive patient outcomes (skin, fall, Sepsis, DVT etc). It also assist nursing productivity since it provides a snapshot readily available to the nurse highlighting information that is missing.