The Song and Dance … and Art of Informatics: Creating a Productivity Measurement Tool for Creative Arts Therapists

Many therapeutic disciplines have increased research into using healthcare informatics for monitoring workload productivity, but informatics research in the creative arts therapies is still emerging. This paper discusses the development of a healthcare informatics tool to capture workload data within a multisite network of creative arts therapists within the military and veteran healthcare systems: art therapists, dance/movement therapists, and music therapists. In this paper, we describe the development of a workload performance measurement tool (PMT) through agile project management and a participatory evaluation approach. Developing this tool revealed that providers from the three creative arts therapies engaged in similar types of work. User testimonials also revealed the PMT provided benefits to the network beyond tracking time in multiple categories, and analyses on these themes revealed clinical creative arts therapists, administrative creative arts therapists and personnel, and noncreative arts therapists thought about the data differently. Challenges with developing the tool, solutions for the challenges, and the benefits that the tool provides are discussed.