Rank Ordered Design Attributes for Health Care Dashboards Including Artificial Intelligence: Usability Study

Melina Malkani; Eesha Madan; Dillon Malkani; Arav Madan; Neel Singh; Tara Bamji; Harman Sabharwal

doi:10.2196/58277

Rank Ordered Design Attributes for Health Care Dashboards Including Artificial Intelligence: Usability Study

Online J Public Health Inform. 2024 Nov 20:16:e58277. doi: 10.2196/58277.

Authors

Melina Malkani¹, Eesha Madan², Dillon Malkani³, Arav Madan⁴, Neel Singh⁵, Tara Bamji⁶, Harman Sabharwal⁷

Affiliations

¹ Bullis School, Potomac, MD, United States.
² George Washington University, Washington DC, DC, United States.
³ University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, MD, United States.
⁴ Basis Independent McLean, Vienna, VA, United States.
⁵ Duke University, Durham, NC, United States.
⁶ Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, NY, United States.
⁷ St Stephens and St Agnes School, Alexandria, VA, United States.

PMID: 39566038
DOI: 10.2196/58277

Abstract

Background: On average, people in the United States visit a doctor 4 times a year, and many of them have chronic illnesses. Because of the increased use of technology, people frequently rely on the internet to access health information and statistics. People use health care information to make better-educated decisions for themselves and others. Health care dashboards should provide pertinent and easily understood data, such as information on timely cancer screenings, so the public can make better-informed decisions. In order to enhance health outcomes, effective dashboards should provide precise data in an accessible and easily digestible manner.

Objective: This study identifies the top 15 attributes of a health care dashboard. The objective of this research is to enhance health care dashboards to benefit the public by making better health care information available for more informed decisions by the public and to improve population-level health care outcomes.

Methods: The authors conducted a survey of health care dashboards with 218 individuals identifying the best practices to consider when creating a public health care dashboard. The data collection was conducted from June 2023 to August 2023. The analyses performed were descriptive statistics, frequencies, and a comparison to a prior study.

Results: From May 2023 to June 2023, we collected 3259 responses in multiple different states around the United States from 218 people aged 18 years or older. The features ranking in descending order of importance are as follows: (1) easy navigation, (2) historical data, (3) simplicity of design, (4) high usability, (5) use of clear descriptions, (6) consistency of data, (7) use of diverse chart types, (8) compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, (9) incorporated user feedback, (10) mobile compatibility, (11) comparison data with other entities, (12) storytelling, (13) predictive analytics with artificial intelligence, (14) adjustable thresholds, and (15) charts with tabulated data.

Conclusions: Future studies can extend the research to other types of dashboards such as bioinformatics, financial, and managerial dashboards as well as confirm these top 15 best practices for medical dashboards with further evidentiary support. The medical informatics community may benefit from standardization to improve efficiency and effectiveness as dashboards can communicate vital information to patients worldwide on critically prominent issues. Furthermore, health care professionals should use these best practices to help increase population health care outcomes by informing health care consumers to make better decisions with better data.

Keywords: consumer decision-making; dashboards; data visualization; health data; informed decisions; population health; public health; usability.

©Melina Malkani, Eesha Madan, Dillon Malkani, Arav Madan, Neel Singh, Tara Bamji, Harman Sabharwal. Originally published in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (https://ojphi.jmir.org/), 20.11.2024.