If I were a clinical director in an acute hospital, I would postively insist on seeing activity data like this updated every week. Three charts, side by side. The starter-for-ten platform for assessing how well—or how badly—patients are flowing through the directorate.
There are one or two complications that need to be overcome before we can be sure that this dashboard is genuinely useful. For one thing, if we want the reassurance that the arithmetic between the three graphs (red multiplied by blue equals green) has integrity, then we need to make sure we're measuring in-frame discharges each week and in-frame length of stay each week.
Secondly, we need to think about adding some specification limits to these graphs so that managers and clinicians can see the zone within which the green fullness values are supposed to fit.
But this is the foundation. I'll have a lot more to say about this triptych approach in the days and weeks to come...
[11 November 2024]