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Using Digital Dashboards to Characterise Demographics and Service Utilisation of Multi-Tiered Outpatient Paediatric
Maryanne Syrmis1, Olivia Taylor1, Danielle McCoy1
1Speech Pathology Department, Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH), Brisbane, Australia.
Insights
Digital dashboards reveal differences in paediatric feeding clinic care. Multidisciplinary clinics effectively address diverse paediatric feeding disorder needs, informing future digital tool development.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Feeding Disorders
- Clinical Informatics
- Healthcare Management
Background:
- Digital dashboards offer real-time insights into clinical and service performance trends.
- Limited research exists on their application in characterizing feeding clinic care for pediatric feeding disorder (PFD).
- This study leverages a digital dashboard to analyze care patterns in four distinct outpatient feeding clinics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare patient demographics and service utilization across four specialized outpatient feeding clinics.
- To identify variations in care delivery, wait times, and outcomes based on clinic structure.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of different multidisciplinary approaches for pediatric feeding disorder.
Main Methods:
- A retrospective analysis of 2023 digital dashboard data from a single children's hospital.
- Comparison of demographics (e.g., cultural background) and service utilization (e.g., appointment scheduling) across four clinics: SP-only, DT-SP, OT-SP, and DT-OT-SP.
- Analysis included data from 551 children treated for PFD.
Main Results:
- Significant variations observed in demographics, wait times, scheduling, delivery methods, attendance, and outcomes among the four clinics.
- Infants and children with oropharyngeal dysphagia received prioritized or specialized care.
- Telehealth utilization differed significantly, with DT-OT-SP clinics showing higher rates and OT-SP clinics showing lower rates.
Conclusions:
- Multi-tiered, multidisciplinary feeding clinics are effective in managing diverse PFD needs.
- Findings highlight the need for tailored service delivery models based on PFD type and patient demographics.
- The study provides insights for the future development and optimization of digital dashboards in pediatric feeding services.
Background:
Digital dashboards are interactive, visual displays that provide real-time identification of clinical and service performance trends. Few studies have reported their use in characterising feeding clinic care for children with paediatric feeding disorder (PFD). This study used data from a digital dashboard at a children's hospital to compare populations and service utilisation across four outpatient feeding clinics: speech pathology-only (SP-only), dietetics and speech pathology (DT-SP), occupational therapy and speech pathology (OT-SP), and dietetics, occupational therapy, and speech pathology (DT-OT-SP).
Methods:
This single-centre, retrospective study used 2023 digital dashboard data to compare the demographics (i.e., cultural background) and service utilisation (e.g., appointment scheduling) of the four clinics.
Results:
Data relating to 551 children were analysed. Significant differences were found between clinics for demographics, wait times, scheduling, delivery methods, attendance, and outcomes. Children referred for suspected oropharyngeal dysphagia and infants were prioritised for earlier management, whereas those requiring OT-SP intervention waited longest. Infants received the most intensive hospital-based management, whereas children with oropharyngeal dysphagia did not require long-term hospital-based follow-up. Children in DT-OT-SP were more likely to receive telehealth appointments, whilst those in OT-SP had the lowest telehealth utilisation. Children from culturally and linguistically diverse communities were more likely to attend OT-SP or DT-OT-SP. OT-SP had a higher likelihood of missed appointments and was less likely to need a review waiting list.
Conclusion:
Findings support multi-tiered multidisciplinary feeding clinics in addressing the clinical and service needs associated with different types of PFD. Results inform future development needs of digital dashboards.
