What Can a Dashboard Tell You About Your Pediatric Practice?

Choosing an EHR vendor can be a difficult task, as there are many different aspects of the software to take into consideration while making your decision. Each vendor is different, and deciding which one will benefit a particular company is not easy. What can one company offer you that others can't? A dashboard is a feature to keep in mind while making your choice.

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard is a program that runs data analytics on the business. It can be one of the most valuable features for a pediatric practice to have access to. There are countless stories of practices starting to utilize this feature, and making significant increases in revenue as a result. The purpose a dashboard is to record data from all aspects of the practice – clinical and financial – analyze the results, and suggest ways that the practice could improve upon their weak areas.

The different aspects measured by the dashboard are called measures. A measure, for example, would be something like developmental screening rates or revenue per visit.

5 Things a Pediatric Specific Dashboard Can Tell You About Your Practice

1. Seasonal vaccine rates. This one is very relevant right now, because it is the middle of flu season. This feature will show you which active patients have gotten their vaccine. You can drill down by including the year prior, and the rates of other practices around the country if desired. In order to make the appearance easy to interpret, there is a line graph that shows the data.
2. Well visit rates. Knowing your preventive care performance is vital for the health of your patients and your practice. How many of your toddlers are actually overdue? What improved after you implemented your new recall program? How do other pediatricians in your state perform? Well visits remain the distinctive competency of pediatricians, and maximizing their delivery is important.
3. Patient population. This is a great way to count the number of active patients you have of different ages. You can see a snapshot of the population each month, and see whether it is shrinking or growing.
4. Productivity Lab. This feature allows you as a pediatrician to see how well your business is doing in general over the months or years.
5. Overall pricing. It's good to get to know how much you charge compared to what other practices charge on average. If one of your scores is frighteningly low in comparison, the dashboard will provide advice on what to do to remedy that.

PCC's pediatric specific dashboard runs these analytics once a month. People may wonder how that is more efficient than running reports themselves. A dashboard is more efficient because as soon as you log in, all of the information is there right away. It takes no time at all to have the information at your fingertips. Not only does it present relevant data, it also gives advice about how to improve.

3 Reasons to Use a Dashboard

Chip Hart, PCC's Director of Pediatric Solutions, believes there are three major reasons that using a dashboard makes sense:

1. You log into your account and the numbers are all right there. It is automatic, and takes no effort.
2. It gives you visuals. Graphical comparisons can be helpful for presentation, and for visual learners.
3. All of your numbers are put in context. When you are working by yourself and cannot compare yourself to anyone, it is hard to know if you are doing a good job. The comparison between a practice's data and the national averages helps give the office a better idea of whether or not they are actually doing a good job.

Elaborating on those reasons, Chip says,

PCC's Dashboard not only provides the data you'd expect, it also guides practices using advice from PCC about how to run your practice more efficiently and identifies your working priorities.

The dashboard is an important piece of functionality that helps pediatricians recognize the areas where they are strong as well as the areas that need some work. Using a pediatric specific dashboard can have a positive impact on your practice's revenue, and helps you focus on running your practice like a business.