Informing National Pandemic Management Real Time for Population Health

Designing the dashboard had to consider how to create succinct, clear widgets from a wide range of information sources, and in a way that satisfied the needs of busy clinical professional users without being overwhelming. It necessitated collaboration across Government services, close coordination within the Agency, and involvement of beneficiaries central to this initiative. This collaboration was instrumental to the project’s successful delivery, and internally involved customer experience, service design, digital architecture, informatics, product ownership, infrastructure delivery and assurance. The project itself was immensely time pressured due to the critical pandemic response need where prior to COVID no capability existed.

The dashboard makes complex and often disparate information manageable and meaningful. The vaccination section expresses Government vaccine advice to guide users gracefully through steps. The health information section is designed with components for a wholistic picture of most relevant connected information to assist with navigating the pandemic in a clear understandable way. The amount of clinical information, such as medicines, displayed per component is driven by data and clinical needs and was co-designed with clinicians for safety and assurance. Users medical conditions are derived from clinical documents designed provide value when needed most.

During the design discovery, we identified that consumers are the primary beneficiaries of this initiative, while healthcare providers are secondary given that they already had access to the relevant clinical information within My Health Record. The dashboard gives all 23 million My Health Records a snapshot of all COVID-19 related information in one place, including pathology or testing results, vaccination history and follow up consultations as well as other important clinical information including medicines and co-morbidities. This helps both patients’ health professionals to improve the patient experience and health outcomes

"The dashboard components have changed several times in the 16 months since Initial launch, evolving to meet, ATAGI recommendations, Federal and State Health policies and technical improvements. The COVID-19 vaccination dashboard will evolve over time and future improvements are already being considered current data and research is providing The Agency with new insights into presenting health information and preparing for future significant health events. Information in each component is tailored to a specific purpose and those design decisions have influenced design decisions in the recently released my health app. The timeline-style information was so well received in the Dashboard that it became integral to the my health app. Designs of the dashboard changed how pathology reports for other respiratory infections were reported and displayed. The vaccination status of a person would generate Notifications and reminders for the next vaccination or booster based on their demographic information, history of Immunisations and any Allergies or adverse reactions to contents of each vaccine as they became available. The COVID dashboard became a very useful navigation tool to move from COVID-centric information to detailed information from each component. It was the first opportunity to combine clinical information alongside self-reported information.