The Impact of an Enhanced Data Visualization Tool for Hypertension in the Electronic Health Record on Physician...

Uncontrolled hypertension is a significant US health problem, despite existing effective treatments. This study assessed the impact of variations in patterns of blood pressure data on physician perceptions of hypertension control using different forms of data visualization.

Physicians (N = 57) reviewed eight brief vignettes describing a fictitious patient; each vignette included a graph of the patient's blood pressure data. We examined how variations in mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), blood pressure standard deviation (SD), and form of visualization (e.g., line graph with raw values or smoothed values only) affected judgments about hypertension control and need for medication change.

Smoothing successfully reduced visual noise for the physicians. For controlled hypertension, physician judgments were more consistent with clinical guidelines when using the smoothed graph compared with the raw data graph. Judgments about hypertension control with the smoothed graph were similar to judgments made using the raw data graph for cases of uncontrolled hypertension.

Data visualization can direct physicians to attend to more clinically meaningful information, thereby improving their judgments of hypertension control.