Simple but complex: aged care healthcare professionals' perspectives on the design of a digital falls dashboard

Digital dashboards are widely employed across healthcare settings to present data, supporting timely risk identification and enhancing clinical decision-making. Incorporating feedback from end-users into dashboard design supports their uptake and utilisation. The current study aimed to: (a) understand how healthcare professionals working in residential aged care gather, interpret, transfer and communicate clinical information especially for falls management; and (b) utilise co-design methods to determine healthcare professionals' preferences for presentation, content and functionality of a digital falls dashboard to support delivery of care in residential aged care.

Participants were recruited via aged care provider and primary health network contacts. Individual interviews with general practitioners (GPs) (n = 3) explored end-user needs including information needs for falls management, decision-making processes, and dashboard preferences. Dashboard prototypes were developed using the interview findings and published guidelines. Prototypes were then presented for feedback in eight workshops (n = 20 participants; residential aged care staff, GPs, and geriatricians) completed via videoconferencing or in-person to gain feedback. Interview and workshop transcripts were analysed using template analysis.

During interviews, GPs discussed difficulties in accessing aged care resident information, clinical decision-making in residential aged care, and use of decision support. During workshops, healthcare professionals shared feedback on the design, content, and functionality of dashboard prototypes. Healthcare professionals also discussed themes of human-technology interaction. This included mistrust of new digital tools and barriers to their use in residential aged care. The current study found that healthcare professionals want a dashboard that displays relevant resident data, such as medications, includes features for benchmarking, and provides detailed insights to support decision making. They expressed a need for evidence-based decision support but advocated for minimal alerts.

Healthcare professionals were receptive to using a dashboard in residential aged care to minimise resident falls. They shared their design ideas in co-design interviews and workshops for a prospective dashboard. Findings informed the initial development and subsequent revisions of the dashboard to align with end-user preferences.