Centralized Multi-Patient Dashboards' Impact on ICU Clinician Performance and Satisfaction: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND: Intensive care unit (ICU) clinicians encounter frequent challenges with managing vast amounts of fragmented data while caring for multiple critically ill patients simultaneously. This may lead to increased provider cognitive load that may jeopardize patient safety.

OBJECTIVES: This systematic review assesses the impact of centralized multi-patient dashboards on ICU clinician performance, perceptions regarding the use of these tools, and patient outcomes.

METHODS: A literature search was conducted on February 9, 2023, using the EBSCO CINAHL, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, IEEE Xplore, MEDLINE, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection databases. Eligible studies that included ICU clinicians as participants and tested the effect of dashboards designed for use by multiple users to manage multiple patients on user performance and/or satisfaction compared to the standard practice. We narratively synthesized eligible studies following the SWiM guidelines. Studies were grouped based on dashboard type and outcomes assessed.

RESULTS: The search yielded a total of 2407 studies. Five studies met inclusion criteria and were included. Among these, three studies evaluated interactive displays in the ICU, one study assessed two dashboards in the pediatric ICU (PICU), and one study examined centralized monitor in the PICU. Most studies reported several positive outcomes, including reductions in data gathering time before rounds, a decrease in misrepresentations during multidisciplinary rounds, improved daily documentation compliance, faster decision-making, and user satisfaction. One study did not report any significant association.

CONCLUSIONS: The multi-patient dashboards were associated with improved ICU clinician performance and were positively perceived in most of the included studies. The risk of bias was high and the certainty of evidence was very low, due to inconsistencies, imprecision, indirectness in the outcome measure and methodological limitations. Designing and evaluating multi-patient tools using robust research methodologies is an important focus for future research.