The Development of a Dashboard to the Emergency Department during COVID-19

Background: Information dashboards are useful tools for up-to-date decision-making by visualizing data. Objectives: This study aimed to report the development of a dashboard in the emergency department (ED) during COVID-19 in a big hospital in Iran. Methods: The authors developed a dashboard by user-centered design (UCD) methodology in four phases, namely specification of the context of use, specification of the requirements, creation of design solutions, and evaluation. Indicators were determined by reviewing previous studies and interviewing focus groups with an expert panel. The Power BI Desktop software was used for the development of the dashboard. Users’ comments about the dashboard were collected. The dashboard was then developed and revised according to the users’ feedback and suggestions. Finally, user satisfaction was evaluated. Results: The authors identified 30 indicators for COVID-19 ED, classified as input, output, and process indicators. The final version of the dashboard was implemented in 2021, and then 28 ED and managerial staff participated in the evaluation of the dashboard. The average score of the system usability scale of the dashboard was 84.10 points, and the situation awareness index was 3.97, which indicates “good” usability and situation awareness. Conclusion: This dashboard presented key managerial and clinical indicators for decision-making in ED. Future studies can be designed to develop dashboards for accidents and burns EDs and create emergency information dashboards for several hospitals for better management in times of crisis.