Hospital Discharges in Austria: An Interactive Dashboard Creation

Julia Böck; Pi Bohlbro; Yuying Ba

doi:10.60522/o:7219

Open in new window

Title (eng)

Hospital Discharges in Austria: An Interactive Dashboard Creation

Author

Julia Böck

St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences

Pi Bohlbro

Aarhus University

Yuying Ba

University of Twente

Description (eng)

This study aims to design and develop an interactive visualization that displays hospital discharge data from the nine Austrian counties. The motivation behind this work lies in the need for accessible, intuitive tools to explore and analyze complex healthcare data, enabling domain experts to identify trends, make comparisons, and support evidence-based decision-making. The visualization seeks to answer two key questions: How can Austrian hospital discharge data be designed as an interactive visualization? And how can the data be communicated effectively through an interactive visualization to support domain experts in gaining an overview of hospital discharge data? To address these questions, several methodologies were employed. The 5 Design Sheet Methodology was utilized to systematically design the dashboard. This approach ensured clarity and effectiveness in representing the data by breaking down the design process into manageable steps. The creation of the dashboard was executed using Tableau, a data visualization tool. The hospital discharge data was sourced from Statistik Austria, together with population data to normalize between different counties. The normalization process was essential to provide a comparison between regions with varying population sizes. The dashboard was subjected to user testing involving four experts in the health domain and two experts in the data visualization domain. Additionally, 19 data visualization students provided feedback through a structured evaluation session. After interacting with the dashboard, experts participating in semi-structured interviews provided feedback on their experience. Overall, the feedback highlighted the dashboard’s strength in combining geographic and temporal perspectives and praised the usefulness of interactive features such as dynamic filters and tooltips. Users appreciated the ability to customize the analysis to specific needs, with educators in emergency care using the dashboard to build region-specific training scenarios. Suggestions for improvement included optimizing performance, especially for the horizon plot, and adding advanced filtering options such as demographic breakdowns and co-occurring diagnoses. The designed dashboard displays trends and inter-correlations of various discharge categories from 2001 to 2022 in Austria. To enhance the user experience and facilitate deeper analysis, several interaction techniques were incorporated. Tooltips were implemented to display detailed information about hospital stay durations and patient numbers. Additionally, a map was linked with a bump chart to provide a clear view of each county’s data through the years. This linkage allowed users to see geographic trends alongside temporal changes. Horizon charts were also included, with drag-able rows that allowed users to freely discover and compare different disease categories. These interactive features were designed with the aim of helping domain experts gain a comprehensive overview of disease patterns, predict trends, and gain more profound insights from the data. By transforming hospital discharge data into an interactive visualization, the dashboard was designed to make the information more accessible and useful for decision making in the healthcare sector. In conclusion, the combination of the 5 Design Sheet Methodology and semi-structured expert interviews facilitated the creation of an effective and user-friendly interactive visualization of hospital discharge data in Austria. This visualization not only provides a clear overview of historical trends but also empowers healthcare professionals to explore and analyze the data in ways that support informed decision-making.

Keywords (eng)

Information visualizationdashboardhospital discharge

Subject (eng)

ÖFOS 2012 -- 5080 -- Media and Communication Sciences

Subject (eng)

ÖFOS 2012 -- 202022 -- Information technology

Subject (eng)

ÖFOS 2012 -- 202002 -- Audiovisual media

Subject (eng)

ÖFOS 2012 -- 6040 -- Arts

Type (eng)

conference object