HealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsBe confident in your staff’s ability to reduce risk by providing compliance training that changes behavior.
View All ProductsDevelop next-level people for next-level care by prioritizing quality and safety improvements.
View All ProductsEstablish a culture of belonging with education supporting DEI, wellness, engagement, and leadership development.
View All ProductsDeliver custom or industry designed product training directly to patient and resident care environments to reinforce proper use.
View All ProductsStop wasting money on RCM issues. Learn how to Provide your team with expert-led revenue cycle training to help them reduce denied claims, reimbursement mistakes, and more.
View All ProductsLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ProductsOur competency development solutions personalize learning for clinicians to bridge the gap between theory and practice for your nurse residents.
View All ProductsEnhance maternal & child nursing care with solutions focused on improving the quality of care for mothers, infants, and children.
View All ProductsAddress staffing orientation challenges to easily achieve and maintain certification with our emergency and acute care training solutions.
View All ProductsAs a premier provider of healthcare education, we are committed to promoting safer, more successful surgical and sedation outcomes for each and every patient.
View All ProductsOur solutions are designed to cater to the needs of patients, healthcare professionals, and organizations dealing with illnesses or chronic conditions.
View All ProductsOnline clinical placement software allows schools, healthcare organizations, and students to seamlessly manage clinical and nursing rotations.
View All ProductsTackle all the challenges of provider directory management within a health plan with a single solution tailored to your specific needs.
View All ProductsOur affordable CVO credentialing services establish patient safety by enabling primary source verification for your healthcare organization.
View All ProductsFinally, a comprehensive resource to support collecting, storing, and sharing credentialing data with ease.
View All ProductsIntegrate with Epic to validate and add new providers directly to your provider master file.
View All ProductsHealthcare workforce management is essential. We provide advanced scheduling solutions for organizations to solve issues such as nurse retention
View All ProductsMitigate risk and elevate your quality of care. Improving both clinical and business outcomes starts with a smarter, more integrated approach to regulatory training, continuing education and quality management.
Learn MoreThe best chart is usually not the newest, most elaborate, or most colorful. In fact, it's often the opposite. You don’t order a medical test for a patient just because you can--don’t just use the sexiest chart available either. So, how do you determine which chart is right for your audience?
Here’s are a few steps to use when creating charts or displaying information.
Think People First
First rule or step. It's not about you or your capabilities. Its about getting your audience to value what you’re trying to communicate. Consider these questions as they can impact things like the type or sophistication of your chart
Is this something your audience has seen before? Is it familiar to them? Do they work with data often?
When and where will they use it? At their desk? On a mobile device?
What question are you trying to help them answer?
As it relates to how questions relate to chart selection see the graphic below. In many ways the question we’re answering for our audience informs how we should display the information. Note specifically in the lower question how “time” and “trend” suggests that this will be a chart specifically related to trends like a line graph.
Selecting Chart Types
With questions and audience knowledge under your belt, you can start to consider what charts make the most sense. Here are the major chart types as illustrated by the folks at Extreme Presentation and their Chart Chooser Tool. With a chart category in mind, such as comparison or relationship, you can start to define how basic or rich it can be. If it's a paper based report or presentation for first time readers, a pretty basic selection is probably in order. However, if its to be displayed on an iPad, by folks familiar with the data you have more latitude to incorporate interactivity or sophistication.
Formatting
Once the chart type is selected you need to format it. In many ways the colors selected, text written, labeling and font used should reinforce what is being communicated by the chart and visa vera. The chart and its formatting should co-exist well.
Here are some resources to help with how your text should be displayed as well as how to apply color purposefully.
How to apply fonts -Simple Font Framework
How to use color - Color has Meaning
Simplicity
“Perfection is achieved, not when there’s nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It's a good habit to make your last step all about simplifying your chart display. It used to be the case that Excel included all this extra formatting that needed to be removed. This isn’t the case any longer, but check out the Data to Ink principle below in practice. If it doesn’t add anything for the user than remove it. Less is always more, especially decision makers.
Feedback
Applying these steps to your chart selection and information sharing will take you a long way. For the first couple of times think about getting feedback from your peers or audience themselves to see if they walk away with the intended interpretation.
Once you beyond these initial steps consider an Edward Tufte class, some data visualization books, like Data Fluency or others to continue to advance your skills. Happy charting!
About Juice
Juice is an expert in designing and building web applications that connect people with data. We work with clients across industries including healthcare, digital advertising, and other data-rich businesses. Founded in 2004, Juice has offices in Nashville, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.
Our people, our platform and our passion are all dedicated to building data products that people love to use. To us, this means finding better ways of capturing the excitement of finding an insight and sharing it with a colleague. This means telling a story using data that unfolds as your understanding grows. This means delivering data products that make your customers say, "Wow!"
HealthStream—which made a minority equity investment in Juice last year—was instrumental in a Juice headquarters relocation to Nashville one year ago, with both companies recognizing the potential of Juice and its products to support HealthStream’s network, including Nashville’s data-rich healthcare industry.
HealthStream’s learning management system and healthcare training solutions support medical training initiatives and allow for the best patient care.
View All Learning & PerformanceHealthStream offers performance learning management solutions to help develop your healthcare staff into leaders and reduce turnover.
View All ProductsHealthStream works with healthcare organizations to create engaging and high-quality training videos for your staff and management.
View All ProductsImprove care quality and save money by making informed decisions about your healthcare facility and staff with HealthStream's reporting analytics solution.
View All ProductsHealthStream's proven methods for the improvement and overall engagement of your healthcare staff foster a positive workplace and increase retention rates.
View All ProductsWhen you enact HealthStream's quality compliance solutions, you can do so with the confidence your healthcare organization will meet all standards of care.
View All Quality & ComplianceBe confident in your staff’s ability to reduce risk by providing compliance training that changes behavior.
View All ProductsDevelop next-level people for next-level care by prioritizing quality and safety improvements.
View All ProductsEstablish a culture of belonging with education supporting DEI, wellness, engagement, and leadership development.
View All ProductsUtilize patient access solutions and advanced reimbursement solutions to manage clinical denials and improve your organization’s reimbursement strategy.
View All ReimbursementExpand the decision-making skills and effectiveness of your healthcare workforce with HealthStream's clinical development programs and services.
View All Clinical DevelopmentLearn about our advanced resuscitation training solutions. Our solutions are designed to help improve patient outcomes.
View All ProductsOur competency development solutions personalize learning for clinicians to bridge the gap between theory and practice for your nurse residents.
View All ProductsEnhance maternal & child nursing care with solutions focused on improving the quality of care for mothers, infants, and children.
View All ProductsAddress staffing orientation challenges to easily achieve and maintain certification with our emergency and acute care training solutions.
View All ProductsAs a premier provider of healthcare education, we are committed to promoting safer, more successful surgical and sedation outcomes for each and every patient.
View All ProductsOur solutions are designed to cater to the needs of patients, healthcare professionals, and organizations dealing with illnesses or chronic conditions.
View All ProductsOnline clinical placement software allows schools, healthcare organizations, and students to seamlessly manage clinical and nursing rotations.
View All ProductsComprehensive, industry-leading provider onboarding and credentialing software that validates health outcomes and supports provider assessment.
View All CredentialingOur affordable CVO credentialing services establish patient safety by enabling primary source verification for your healthcare organization.
View All ProductsIntegrate with Epic to validate and add new providers directly to your provider master file.
View All ProductsMake sure your healthcare staff can schedule out appointments and work schedules with ease using HealthStream's line of software solutions.
View All SchedulingHealthcare workforce management is essential. We provide advanced scheduling solutions for organizations to solve issues such as nurse retention
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