A Collection of Components to Design Clinical Dashboards Incorporating Patient-Reported Outcome Measures: Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background: A clinical dashboard is a data-driven clinical decision support tool visualizing multiple key performance indicators in a single report while minimizing time and effort for data gathering. Studies have shown that including patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in clinical dashboards supports the clinician's understanding of how treatments impact patients' health status, helps identify changes in health-related quality of life at an early stage, and strengthens patient-physician communication.

Objective: This study aims to determine design components for clinical dashboards incorporating PROMs to inform software producers and users (ie, physicians).

Methods: We conducted interviews with software producers and users to test preselected design components. Furthermore, the interviews allowed us to derive additional components that are not outlined in existing literature. Finally, we used inductive and deductive coding to derive a guide on which design components need to be considered when building a clinical dashboard incorporating PROMs.

Results: A total of 25 design components were identified, of which 16 were already surfaced during the literature search. Furthermore, 9 additional components were derived inductively during our interviews. The design components are clustered in a generic dashboard, PROM-related, adjacent information, and requirements for adoption components. Both software producers and users agreed on the primary purpose of a clinical dashboard incorporating PROMs to enhance patient communication in outpatient settings. Dashboard benefits include enhanced data visualization and improved workflow efficiency, while interoperability and data collection were named as adoption challenges. Consistency in dashboard design components is preferred across different episodes of care, with adaptations only for disease-specific PROMs.

Conclusions: Clinical dashboards have the potential to facilitate informed treatment decisions if certain design components are followed. This study establishes a comprehensive framework of design components to guide the development of effective clinical dashboards incorporating PROMs in health care practice.

Keywords: clinical dashboards; design components; patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs); patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

Figure 1

Overview on design components for developing clinical dashboards incorporating patient-reported outcome measures. PRO: patient-reported outcome; PROM: patient-reported outcome measure.