Visualization of Patient-Generated Health Data: A Scoping Review of Dashboard Designs

Abstract

Background: Patient-centered clinical decision support (PC CDS) aims to assist with tailoring decisions to an individual patient's needs. Patient-generated health data (PGHD), including physiologic measurements captured frequently by automated devices, provide important information for PC CDS. The volume and availability of such PGHD is increasing, but how PGHD should be presented to clinicians to best aid decision-making is unclear.

Objectives: Identify best practices in visualizations of physiologic PGHD, for designing a software application as a PC CDS tool.

Methods: We performed a scoping review of studies of PGHD dashboards that involved clinician users in design or evaluations. We included only studies that used physiologic PGHD from single patients for usage in decision-making.

Results: We screened 468 titles and abstracts, 63 full-text papers, and identified 15 articles to include in our review. Some research primarily sought user input on PGHD presentation; other studies garnered feedback only as a side effort for other objectives (e.g., integration with electronic health records [EHRs]). Development efforts were often in the domains of chronic diseases and collected a mix of physiologic parameters (e.g., blood pressure and heart rate) and activity data. Users' preferences were for data to be presented with statistical summaries and clinical interpretations, alongside other non-PGHD data. Recurrent themes indicated that users desire longitudinal data display, aggregation of multiple data types on the same screen, actionability, and customization. Speed, simplicity, and availability of data for other purposes (e.g., documentation) were key to dashboard adoption. Evaluations were favorable for visualizations using common graphing or table formats, although best practices for implementation have not yet been established.

Conclusion: Although the literature identified common themes on data display, measures, and usability, more research is needed as PGHD usage grows. Ensuring that care is tailored to individual needs will be important in future development of clinical decision support.

Fig. 1

Literature flow diagram.