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Hi Everyone, From reading the WHO article, it seems like the Mpilo Central Hospital dashboard was developed in a format that responded to the information needs of the organization, highlighted how the organization was measuring up against some targets, and was actually used to inform decisions. In this way, I feel like it is really a dashboard, according to Stephen Few’s article. At first glance, the dashboard just looks like a data table so perhaps it’s not the most visually-simple or visually-appeasing dashboard out there. However, it displays important information on one screen, that can be interpreted fairly easily, particularly because of the addition of targets and also the red, yellow, green light system. The section, “Changes after introducing maternity dashboards” is the part that really convinced me – the organization was able to monitor the data more efficiently than previously. And they used the dashboards to identify areas that needed change and then to implement changes. I’m interested to hear what others think.
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The definition Few proposes is “A dashboard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be
monitored at a glance.” Given these factors, the maternity dashboards discussed in the WHO article do reach this stated objective. The dashboard visually displays accurate and timely information that informs the work that is happening in the hospitals, and staff is able to easily monitor through a color-coded system clinical outcomes. -
I think the WHO dashboard is a dashboard, albeit a crowded one. Dashboards *don’t* need to be live-updating, necessarily, and this one appears to have been a static table updated monthly. What this does do is display complex data in a fairly clear way, with color-coding to indicate where pinch points are. I can see where this would help the hospital team see at a glance where the areas of need would be–quickly estimating based on how many months there are left in the year and last year’s birth numbers how many more babies would be born this year. This dashboard also provides the data in one place so that the healthcare workers can interpret it: why are there more SCBU admits one month, for example, etc.
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The example shared in the WHO article meets the definition of a dashboard per Few’s article, consolidating the most important information selected by the hospital and color coded for easy recognition of health trends requiring urgent intervention.
However, I am curious whether all the data is actually laid out on one page given that the title reads “Maternity Dashboard (front page)”. I wonder whether any key information is missing on this page. Additionally, as mentioned in the answer sheet for the Graph Design IQ test, having bright colored backgrounds and a table highlighting all of the information makes the data potentially harder to read, especially if anyone needing the information experiences red/green colorblindness. It might be more legible and therefore more effective to only highlight the data that requires the attention of the viewers – in this case, numbers indicating poor outcomes.
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Stephen Few defines a dashboard as “a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance.” The WHO local maternity dashboard in Figure 1 includes a table containing performance metrics related to maternal morbidity and mortality, with target percentages, followed by yearly totals and monthly trends. The monthly trends are color-coded into three groups by how close or far they are from the target percentage. The table displays the final calculations and provides updated snapshots of maternal health trends by visualizing the different color groups. It is possible to see quickly whether a country or hospital is trending towards meeting the target percentage for a particular maternal health metric or not, so the WHO local maternity dashboard meets the definition by Stephen Few.
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I would consider the WHO local maternity dashboard as a dashboard within the context of the definitions from the textbook and Stephen Few’s article. Both definitions note common components such as a visual display of the most important information; the information being tied to a specific objective; and an “at-a-glance” view. The maternity dashboard implemented in Milo Central Hospital in Zimbabwe appears to fit these key dashboard components. First, the dashboard at Mpilo is shown as a visual display with a color-coded format, in which the data is compared to set targets. The key information is shown through specific clinical indicators (e.g., number of women who gave birth, percentage of women who died, etc.). Second, this dashboard’s main purpose is to provide feedback on the PROMPT training course for the maternity staff. There is also an added value of being able to use the data displayed to highlight adverse trends in maternal health outcomes based on the mentioned clinical indicators. Lastly, as shown in the article, the maternity dashboard is presented in an “at-a-glance” format, with a monthly trend view.
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The Mpilo Central Hospital dashboard seemed to me to be a great real-world example of a dashboard according to Stephen Few’s definition. The color-coded format and focus on crucial measures and set targets made actionable information accessible to the staff who had the power to make the necessary differences and see them reflected in the data.
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