Development and integration of a clinical dashboard within a dental school setting

Abstract

Purpose: To describe the development and integration of an electronic health record-driven, student dashboard that displays real-time data relative to the students’ patient management and clinic experiences at the University of Illinois Chicago, College of Dentistry. Materials and methods: Following development and implementation of the student dashboard, various objective metrics were evaluated to identify any improvements in the clinical patient management. A cross-sectional retrospective chart review was completed of the electronic health record (axiUm, Exan, Coquitlam, BC, Canada) from January 2019 to April 2022 evaluating four performance metrics: student lockouts, note/code violations, overdue active patients, and overdue recall patients. Descriptive statistics were analyzed. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test was applied to assess the normal distribution of data. Data were analyzed by the Kruskal–Wallis tests for potential differences between pre-dashboard and post-dashboard implementation years with the mean overdue active/recall patient to student ratio variables. Mann–Whitney U-tests for between-groups comparisons with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons were performed (α = 0.05). Descriptive statistics were performed to analyze the student utilization frequency of the dashboard. Results: Post-implementation analysis indicated a slight decrease in the number of lockouts and note/code violation; and a statistically significant decrease in overdue active patients post-dashboard (P < 0.001). On average, students accessed their dashboards 3.3 times a week. Conclusions: Implementation of a student dashboard through the electronic health record platform within an academic dental practice has the potential to assist students with patient management and is utilized regularly by the students.