Visualizing Central Line-Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI) Outcome Data to Health Care Consumers and Practitioners for Decision Making – Evaluation Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate information visualization ofpublicly-reported central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI)outcome data for decision making by diverse target audiences – healthcare consumers and practitioners. We describe the challenges in publiclyreporting of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) data and the interpretationof an evaluation metric. Several options for visualization of CLABSI data weredesigned and evaluated employing exploratory working group, two confirmatoryfocus groups’ observations, and experts’ committee validation ofthe final designs. Survey-data collection and evaluation criteria results,collected from the two focus groups, are presented and are used to develop thefinal recommendations for how to visualize publicly-reported CLABSI data fromMaryland acute care hospitals. Both health care consumer andpractitioner’s perspectives are highlighted and categorized based on thevisualizations’ dimensions framework. Finally, a recommended format forvisualizing CLABSI outcome data based on the evaluation study is summarized.