Section 17.3: Benchmarking and Dashboard Design

17.3.1 The “Why”: Data is Not Information, Information is Not Insight

In the previous sections, you learned how to select the right metrics and use a systematic process to improve them. You have started collecting data: a list of your patients’ HbA1c values, the number of interventions you’ve made, the reduction in 30-day readmissions. You may have a spreadsheet filled with rows and columns of powerful, important numbers. This is a monumental achievement, but it is only the first step. Raw data, in and of itself, is useless to most decision-makers. A spreadsheet with 500 rows of lab values does not tell a story; it creates a headache.

To be effective, your data must undergo a critical transformation. Data, put into context, becomes Information. For example, the raw number “8.2%” is data. The statement, “Patient Smith’s HbA1c is 8.2%, which is above the goal of <8.0%," is information. But even information is not enough to drive action at a system level. Information, when visualized and compared against a standard, becomes Insight. Insight is the “aha!” moment. It’s the point where a complex reality becomes clear, and the path forward becomes obvious. A well-designed chart showing that 70% of your patients are above their A1c goal, compared to only 40% in a benchmark group, is an insight that screams for action.

This is the critical “why” behind this section. The practice of dashboard design and benchmarking is the art and science of transforming raw data into actionable insight. A dashboard is not just a collection of charts; it is a communication tool, a strategic weapon, and a story-telling device. It is how you take the incredible clinical value you create every day and make it visible, understandable, and undeniable to the executives, managers, and payers who control the resources your program needs to survive and grow. Neglecting this final step is like performing a brilliant clinical study and then hiding the manuscript in a drawer. The value is there, but if no one can see it or understand it, it effectively doesn’t exist for the organization.

17.3.2 The Art of the Dashboard: Principles of Effective Data Visualization

Creating an effective dashboard is more than just plugging numbers into Excel and hitting the “chart” button. It is a discipline that blends data science with graphic design and human psychology. A great dashboard communicates complex information with clarity, precision, and efficiency. A poor dashboard confuses, misleads, and frustrates the user, ultimately undermining the value of the data it contains. The following principles are your guide to creating dashboards that inform and inspire action.

Principle 1: Know Thy Audience, Know Thy Goal

This is the cardinal rule. A dashboard is a communication tool, and you cannot communicate effectively without knowing who you are talking to and what you want them to know. A single dashboard will rarely serve all stakeholders equally well. You must tailor the content and the level of detail to the specific audience and their primary concerns.

Masterclass Table: Tailoring Dashboards to Stakeholder Needs

Principle 2: Maximize the Data-Ink Ratio

This concept, popularized by data visualization pioneer Edward Tufte, is simple but powerful. “Data-ink” is the portion of the ink on a page (or pixels on a screen) that is used to represent the actual data. The goal is to maximize this ratio by removing any ink that is non-essential, redundant, or purely decorative. This decorative, non-data ink is called “chartjunk.”

Principle 3: Choose the Right Chart for the Job

Using the wrong type of chart is like choosing the wrong drug for a disease—at best, it’s ineffective; at worst, it’s harmful and misleading. Your choice of visualization must match the type of data you have and the story you want to tell.

Masterclass Table: A Pharmacist’s Formulary of Charts

17.3.3 The Science of Context: A Deep Dive into Benchmarking

You have a beautiful, clean chart that shows your clinic’s hypertension control rate is 72%. This is information. But is it good? Or bad? Or average? Without context, the number is meaningless. Benchmarking is the process of comparing your performance data to a relevant reference point to provide that context. It is the single most important technique for turning information into insight and for driving motivation. Knowing you are at 72% is one thing; knowing the national 90th percentile is 78% provides a powerful, aspirational goal.

Masterclass Table: Types of Benchmarks

17.3.4 Finding Your Yardstick: Sources for High-Quality Benchmarks

Knowing you need external benchmarks is one thing; finding them is another. As a pharmacist, you need to know where to look for credible, relevant, and respected sources of performance data. This is your toolkit for adding powerful context to your dashboards.

Core National Quality Programs

• HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set): Maintained by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA), HEDIS is a set of standardized performance measures used by more than 90% of America’s health plans. Its benchmarks are the industry gold standard.
  • Pharmacy Relevance: Extremely high. Key measures include: Statin Therapy for Patients with Cardiovascular Disease, Statin Use in Persons with Diabetes (SUPD), Medication Adherence for Diabetes, Hypertension, and Cholesterol, Controlling High Blood Pressure.
  • How to Access: NCQA publishes annual “Quality Compass” data with national and regional benchmarks, often broken down by percentile (e.g., 50th, 75th, 90th). This data is often purchased by health systems, so your organization’s Quality department may already have it.
• Medicare Star Ratings (CMS): The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) uses a 5-star rating system to measure the quality of Medicare Advantage plans. Performance directly impacts plan reimbursement, making these metrics a top priority for health systems.
  • Pharmacy Relevance: Critical. Several measures are directly tied to medication use, particularly the three adherence measures for diabetes medications, statins (RAS antagonists), and statins.
  • How to Access: CMS makes this data publicly available. You can find the annual measure cut-points for each star rating online. For example, you can find the exact PDC score needed to achieve a 5-star rating for statin adherence.
• PQA (Pharmacy Quality Alliance): A non-profit organization that develops and maintains pharmacy-specific quality measures. Many of the measures used in the Medicare Star Ratings program were developed by PQA.
  • Pharmacy Relevance: This is your home base. They develop measures for adherence, appropriate medication use (e.g., use of high-risk medications in the elderly), and medication safety.
  • How to Access: PQA’s website lists all their endorsed measures. While they don’t publish national benchmark data themselves, they are the source of the definitions that CMS and health plans use.

Other Valuable Sources

• Your Own Institution: Don’t forget to look internally. Your Quality or Population Health department may have performance data for other clinics in your system. This can be a fantastic source for internal benchmarking.
• Peer-Reviewed Literature: A simple PubMed search for phrases like “pharmacist impact on hypertension control rates” or “30-day readmission reduction heart failure clinic” will often yield studies that report baseline and post-intervention performance data from institutions similar to yours.
• Professional Organizations (ASHP, ACCP, etc.): These organizations often publish practice guidelines and consensus statements that, while not providing hard data, can help in setting evidence-based targets for your process measures.

17.3.5 Putting It All Together: Designing Your First Clinical Dashboard

It’s time to move from theory to practice. Let’s design a dashboard for a pharmacist-led diabetes management service, applying all the principles we’ve discussed. This will be a manager-level dashboard, aimed at showing the overall health of the service.

Step 1: The Sketch

Before touching a computer, sketch the layout on paper. The most important information goes at the top left. Group related items. Think about the story you want to tell.

Step 2: The Mockup – A Live Example

Below is an HTML/CSS-based mockup of a well-designed dashboard. Notice the use of KPI cards, trend lines with layered benchmarks, and clear, concise charts. It tells a story from a high-level summary down to more specific details.