A reference guide to rapidly implementing an institutional dashboard for resource allocation and oversight during COVID-19 pandemic surge

JAMIA Open. 2020 Dec 5;3(4):518-522. doi: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooaa054. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Objectives: We develop a dashboard that leverages electronic health record (EHR) data to monitor intensive care unit patient status and ventilator utilization in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and methods: Data visualization software is used to display information from critical care data mart that extracts information from the EHR. A multidisciplinary collaborative led the development.

Results: The dashboard displays institution-level ventilator utilization details, as well as patient-level details such as ventilator settings, organ-system specific parameters, laboratory values, and infusions.

Discussion: Components of the dashboard were selected to facilitate the determination of resources and simultaneous assessment of multiple patients. Abnormal values are color coded. An overall illness assessment score is tracked daily to capture illness severity over time.

Conclusion: This reference guide shares the architecture and sample reusable code to implement a robust, flexible, and scalable dashboard for monitoring ventilator utilization and illness severity in intensive care unit ventilated patients.

Keywords: critical care; health information systems; informatics; medical informatics computing.