Smarter Screen Time: Integrating Clinical Dashboards Into Graduate Medical Education

Abstract

o ensure that residency and fellowship programs create environments where trainees can learn how individual practice relates to the larger health care system, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) core competencies include practice-based learning and improvement and systems-based practice. Accordingly, the ACGME Common Program Requirements mandate that trainees receive data on quality metrics and benchmarks related to their patient populations and demonstrate competence in using information technology for learning. 1,2 One possible approach to achieve these aims is through dashboards, which are ''visual displays of the most important information'' designed to synthesize and concisely visualize complex data. 3 When employed in the medical setting, they can be used to monitor case mix, increase adherence to practice guidelines, and facilitate higher quality and more efficient clinical care. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Within medical education, dashboards also hold the potential to enhance training in such fields as preventive medicine, population health, and systems management. [15][16][17][18][19] Detailed below are strategies for successful design and implementation of clinical dashboards for graduate medical education (GME) training programs.

Envisioning Graduate Medical Education in 2030

“…True competency-based assessment, with longitudinal performance dashboards 7 populated from public 8 and clinical learning environment data warehouses, will drive learning and assessment. [9][10][11] Software will automate assessment analytics. By 2030, our current health care education management platforms will be relics.…”

Intelligent Graduate Medical Education Dashboard (IGMED) to Enhance Trainee Oversight During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Program coordinators were responsible for dashboard maintenance, ensuring that data was current, and following up on all actionable items until they were resolved. Ongoing coaching and support was provided to all coordinators to ensure that issues were followed through to resolution ( 6 ).The institutional coordinator monitored daily updates from each program. Due to data privacy and sensitivity, theIntelligent Graduate Medical Education dashboard (IGMED) is not made available on a broader platform for hospital leadership but instead remains on a shared hospital fileserver with access limited to coordinators, program directors and the designated institutional official.…”

“…To build the functional section of the dashboard, existing studies and published models of dashboard development were reviewed ( 6 , 9 ).…”

“…Dashboards have been widely used in medical education to track learner milestones, monitor continuous quality improvement, and help programs meet institutional goals and accreditation requirements ( 2 , 6 ). In recent years, health care systems have utilized disaster preparedness dashboards ( 2 , 7 ).…”

Trainee and Program Director Perspectives on Meaningful Patient Attribution and Clinical Outcomes Data

“…Several other investigators have shared their experiences and challenges in using dashboards for trainee clinical metrics. 5,8 We could not identify reports of how these dashboards are used by clinical competency committees or in other assessments.…”