Creating a Digital Dashboard for Influenza Surveillance Paper Example

Introduction

A digital dashboard is an essential electronic interface tool that is used to present data by tracking the KPIs metrics for different diseases and biohazards through data visualizations (Sarikaya et al., 2018). A digital dashboard is an essential tool to create constant and timely situation awareness after analyzing the collected data using Biosurveillance which is made available to multiple partners using a client-server architectural model. The digital dashboard refers to how the data collected is visualized and presented to all the stakeholders who need it for decision making (Hamid, Bell, & Dueger, 2017). Data visualization algorithms and data mining algorithms have made it easy for Biosurveillance data to be presented to all partners which promote the actionability of the data from Biosurveillance systems (Cheng et al., 2011). This paper will create a digital dashboard for influenza monitoring that can be used to present Biosurveillance data and establish all the elements and architecture required to create an actionable digital dashboard.

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Basic Digital Dashboard Elements

A Biosurveillance system contains a lot of data which is complex to understand making it less actionable to the partners which necessitate the creation of a digital dashboard that promotes the visualization of influenza disease data (Staron, 2015). To make use of Biosurveillance data on influenza a good presentation approach is required which can be achieved through the creation of a dashboard. A dashboard compresses multiple data to create visualized reports using algorithms that are used to analyze and present data (Olszak & Batko, 2012). A good dashboard should show users relevant data at a glance and should be easy to understand.

Data Management and Presentation Software

Data presentation require advanced software to combine data into a unique monitoring interface that can be presented in a digital dashboard. Enterprise information integration software will be used to consolidate different influenza data streams being reported at different levels which will make it easy to present and understand the data (Elias, 2012). The Enterprise Information Integration software can save the data into various formats such as graphs and promotes the manageability of a huge pool of data. The Executive Support System (ESS) is another critical software that is necessary for creating the influenza Biosurveillance data digital dashboard. The software allows the collected data to be transformed into accessible and executive reports which can enhance decision making by the CDC partners at the national, regional and state levels. BI algorithms will be used to extract data, analyze and also create reports on the influenza disease different areas concentration and the future trends (Hansoti, 2010). BI software is a significant decision support system that can help CDC partners to understand influenza trends in their respective areas.

Digital Dashboard for Influenza Design Considerations

When creating a digital dashboard for a disease, it is essential to establish a good design that presents the data effectively. Effective communicating dashboards should be easy to understand by the user without having to process the data on themselves (Jespersen, 2017). The following are the guidelines required in creating a digital dashboard for influenza disease.

Target Audience

When creating a digital dashboard, it is essential to understand the users to be able to create dashboard elements that can easily be understood by the users (Jespersen, 2017). The dashboard should be customized to meet user preferences because it is an iterative process.

Screen Boundaries and Visibility

An excellent digital dashboard should contain all the data visualization in a single screen with no scrolling required. This design allows the user to get all the information at a glance which makes it easy to have an overview of the situation. If any of the information visualizations were hidden, it would be difficult to use the dashboard (Kostkova, Garbin, Moser, & Pan, 2014). Data that is supposed to be viewed together should not be separated, and only essential data should be contained in the dashboard. The dashboard should be usable in a computer as well as personal mobile devices such as Android phones and tablets.

Creation of Context

The visual representation that is used in the digital dashboard should have the context to make it easy for the user to understand the data being presented (Jones, Cournane, Sheehy, & Hederman, 2016). Context can be created using infographics that can improve the presentability of data. The data presentation icons should vary in color to make it easy for the user to understand the data at a glance (Kostkova, Garbin, Moser, & Pan, 2014). Besides, the digital dashboard should highlight relevant information and portray high creativity to be attractive for the users and also indicate time and updates to help the user to correctly identify the real time of the data and its applicability in decision making.

Presentation Infographics for a Digital Dashboard

The digital dashboard created are easy to navigate in the monitor and provides essential data that is required in the presentation of Influenza Biosurveillance data. The dashboard is divided into different icons that have further divisions with specific data (Lechner & Fruhling, 2014). For instance, the data source contains key icons that contain data regarding influenza and the process of data collection. The data source icons make it easy for the users to go directly to the required data source by clicking on the icon which separates, epidemiology, virological, notification for updates and the surveillance system which empowers the users to report new information. The visualization is the most detailed presentation which uses maps and graphs to be able to create influenza data variations by geographical area and time.

Conclusion

The digital dashboard for influenza presents critical data elements that users need to make decisions. The dashboard contains clear and observable icons that contain different data elements that can be of benefit to the user. The separation of the icons and their distinct identification makes it easy for the users to collect the data required regarding influenza from the main server. The dashboard uses algorithms to analyze data and present it effortlessly which makes it easy for the users to mine data in real time.

References

Cheng, C. K., Ip, D. K., Cowling, B. J., Ho, L. M., Leung, G. M., & Lau, E. H. (2011). Digital dashboard design using multiple data streams for disease surveillance with influenza surveillance as an example. Journal of medical Internet research, 13(4).

Elias, M. (2012). Enhancing User Interaction with Business Intelligence Dashboards (Doctoral dissertation, Ecole Centrale Paris).

Hamid, S., Bell, L., & Dueger, E. L. (2017). Digital dashboards as tools for regional influenza monitoring. Western Pacific surveillance and response journal: WPSAR, 8(3), 1.

Hansoti, B. (2010). Business Intelligence Dashboard in Decision Making. Purdue University, Purdue e-Pubs. Web

Jespersen, S. (2017). Dashboard Design Guidelines for Improved Evidence Based Decision Making in Public Health in Developing Countries (Master's thesis).

Jones, S., Cournane, S., Sheehy, N., & Hederman, L. (2016). A business analytics software tool for monitoring and predicting radiology throughput performance. Journal of digital imaging, 29(6), 645-653.

Kostkova, P., Garbin, S., Moser, J., & Pan, W. (2014, April). Integration and visualization public health dashboard: the medi+ board pilot project. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 657-662). ACM.

Lechner, B., & Fruhling, A. (2014, June). Towards Public Health Dashboard Design Guidelines. In International Conference on HCI in Business (pp. 49-59). Springer, Cham.

Olszak, C. M., & Batko, K. (2012, September). The use of business intelligence systems in healthcare organizations in Poland. In Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS), 2012 Federated Conference on (pp. 969-976). IEEE.

Sarikaya, A., Correll, M., Bartram, L., Tory, M., & Fisher, D. (2018). What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Dashboards?. IEEE transactions on visualization and computer graphics.

Staron, M. (2015). Dashboard development guide How to build sustainable and useful dashboards to support software development and maintenance. Research Reports in Software Engineering and Management. University of Gothenburg.