Dashboards from Sparklines: All Systems Go!

Dashboards will have several uses in the EMR environment.

• ICUs for displaying those 3-page wide flowsheets of clinical data: intake, output, vital signs, lab, drips, PCA.
• Chronic disease overviews: lab, home monitoring results, vital signs, prompts for next lab or immunization
• Quality Improvement: compliance with standards, progress toward targets, peer comparisons
• Pay for Performance: Budget, progress toward targets, return on investment
• Management dashboards: trends, year-to-year comparisons, key performance indicators

Here are some nice examples


Traffic light (colored dots of red) in the second column. Sparklines in the third column. Bullet graphs in the rightmost columns.



Microbar graphs on the lowest row, with sparklines just above them.


After you sketch out a new dashboard with pencil and paper, you may want to dress it up to show off before you start spending engineer time on it.

Here is a nice PowerPoint template for making high-fidelity wireframe mock-ups.


Download Dashboard Template