Healthcare dashboards are used to support understanding, decision-making and communication by bringing related information together in one visual display. They are used for management and oversight and for monitoring and improving direct patient care. In time-sensitive settings, dashboards are expected to support rapid understanding and reduce cognitive load. Yet their design, implementation and evaluation are often hindered by the absence of standardised guidance. An international scoping review examined literature published between January 2014 and April 2024 to identify existing guidelines and recurring practices for dashboard design in healthcare. PubMed, Embase, Scopus and IEEE Xplore were searched, and 18 publications met the inclusion criteria from 1644 initially identified studies. Most focused on hospitals, with far fewer public-facing or community dashboards. The findings were grouped into four pillars: approach, content, behaviour and adoption. These pillars organise recurring practices that can support more consistent and evidence-informed dashboard development across healthcare settings.
Guidance Gaps Across Healthcare Settings
The evidence base was concentrated in hospitals. Thirteen of the eighteen included publications were hospital focused, while community and public-facing dashboards appeared much less often. That imbalance limited the available guidance for dashboard design outside hospital environments. Hospital dashboards often prioritised clinical indicators and operational use. Public dashboards placed greater emphasis on transparency, accessibility and accountability. Community dashboards were underrepresented.
Structured guidance was uncommon. Only 4 of the 18 publications described structured guidelines for dashboard development. Most implementations were ad hoc, and many publications focused more on evaluation than on clear development methods. Existing evidence had therefore not been consolidated into a structured and theoretically grounded framework that could guide design across settings.
Earlier reviews had already pointed to related limitations. Few included studies used usability testing or formal theoretical frameworks for design or evaluation. Functional and nonfunctional requirements had been identified for hospital dashboards, but many publications lacked empirical evaluation and gave limited detail on implementation or integration with existing systems. These gaps reinforced the need to organise the available evidence into a more coherent design structure.
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Approach, Content, Behaviour and Adoption
The four pillars bring together the main recurring practices identified across the literature. Approach centres on how dashboards are developed. Participatory and iterative methods, engagement of end users and stakeholders, and review of existing systems were all important features. These methods supported better alignment between dashboards and the realities of healthcare work. Co-designed hospital dashboards showed closer fit with clinical needs and stronger validation of selected metrics.
Content concerns what information is shown and how it is presented. Actionable metrics, data quality, timeliness and effective presentation were recurring priorities. The visual display needed to support comprehension rather than simply show more data. Effective insights depended on selecting information that was relevant and usable for decision-making.
Behaviour covers usability and accessibility, including how users interact with dashboards. Some implementations supported richer interactivity and exploration, while others favoured simpler and more static displays. The literature showed conflicting findings on interactivity versus static simplicity. Behaviour therefore needed to match user needs, tasks and context.
Adoption addresses sustainability. Workflow integration, governance, continuous evaluation, privacy, security, cost-effective tools and ongoing refinement all contributed to continued use. Dashboard design was not only a technical matter. Long-term value depended on whether dashboards became part of routine practice and remained manageable over time.
Context Shapes Long-Term Use
Differences between settings were visible not only in content but also in design choices and sustainability. Hospital dashboards commonly used iterative or participatory development methods and often relied on existing governance structures that supported continuous data validation and regular use. Public-facing dashboards were more likely to rely on top-down technical development using aggregated data. These dashboards often had broader transparency goals and simpler presentation styles.
The literature also showed tension between richer interactivity and static simplicity. Interactive dashboards could support exploration and pattern recognition, while simpler designs could reduce cognitive load. No single design model suited every setting. Dashboard priorities were shaped by users, infrastructure, governance arrangements and intended use.
Several gaps remained. Adoption-related issues were addressed less often than design and content, despite their importance for sustained use. Data security and staff training were mentioned rarely. Community and population health dashboards remained scarce, leaving limited guidance on wider stakeholder engagement and the integration of diverse data sources. User involvement and iterative refinement were recognised as important, but they were not applied consistently across the literature.
Healthcare dashboard design remains fragmented. Most published work has focused on hospitals, structured guidance is limited, and many implementations remain ad hoc. The four pillars of approach, content, behaviour and adoption bring together recurring practices in a more practical structure. They emphasise user involvement, actionable metrics, data quality, usability, accessibility, workflow integration and sustainability. The evidence also shows that dashboard design priorities differ across hospital, public and community settings. More consistent development will depend on combining user-centred methods with clear content choices, appropriate interaction design and support for long-term adoption. The four-pillar structure provides a foundation for more evidence-informed dashboard development in healthcare across varied service environments and different organisational contexts.
Source: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Image Credit: iStock
