Designing and developing a digital equity dashboard for the emergency department.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Health Services Research
• Health Equity

Background:

• Racial and ethnic minorities experience documented disparities in emergency department (ED) diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes.
• Limited real-time data monitoring and availability hinder the identification and mitigation of inequitable care patterns within EDs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and assess the usability of an online "Equity Dashboard" for monitoring and addressing care disparities in the ED.
• To provide daily updated data visualizations on demographic, clinical, and operational variables, stratified by patient characteristics.

Main Methods:

• Development of an interactive "Equity Dashboard" using daily updated electronic medical record data.
• Incorporation of data visualizations stratified by age, race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
• Usability assessment through end-user surveys, System Usability Scale (SUS), and Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Main Results:

• The Equity Dashboard provides daily updated insights into patient care trends, including operational challenges like clinician event delays, inpatient boarding, and throughput.
• The tool effectively highlights how operational factors differentially impact diverse patient populations.
• Usability assessments indicated the dashboard's value for quality improvement initiatives.

Conclusions:

• The Equity Dashboard is a valuable digital tool for ED teams to measure performance, identify vulnerabilities, and design targeted interventions.
• This dashboard facilitates the measurement and reduction of clinical care disparities by making trends in patient care accessible to all staff.