Advance care planning dashboard: quality indicators and usability testing

Advance care planning (ACP) and goals of care designation (GCD) performance indicators were developed and implemented across Alberta, Canada, and have been used to populate an electronic ACP/GCD dashboard. The study objective was to investigate whether users found the indicators and dashboard usable and acceptable.

This study employed a survey among a convenience sample of ACP/GCD community of practice members. The survey included questions on demographics, clinical practices and a validated usability questionnaire for the dashboard, System Usability Scale (SUS).

Eighteen of 33 community of practice members (54.5%) answered the survey. Half of participants had a leadership or management role for ≥10 years. Most respondents (55.6%) had access to the ACP/GCD dashboard, and various ACP/GCD audit resources were used. Mean SUS was 70.83 (SD 19.72), which was above the threshold for acceptability (68). Approximately three-quarters of respondents (72.7%) found the indicators informative and meaningful for their practice, and over half (54.5%) were willing to use the dashboard and/or indicators to change their ACP/GCD practice.

The nine indicators and dashboard were acceptable and usable for monitoring ACP/GCD performance. This set of indicators shows promise for describing and evaluating ACP/GCD uptake throughout a complex, multisector healthcare system.