Leaders in long-term care are interrupted constantly. A new alert on top of an already crowded day can feel like noise, and a dashboard nobody opens might as well not exist. Getting the balance right between alerts and dashboards is a design decision, and it is worth making deliberately.
Two Tools, Two Jobs
Dashboards are for looking. They show a picture of how things stand, with trends, comparisons and drill-down. A leader opens a dashboard when they have time to think, such as at the start of a day or before a meeting.
Alerts are for interrupting. They push a specific piece of information to a specific person when something needs attention soon. An alert should be rare enough that people still read it.
Confusing the two leads to trouble. Putting everything in alerts creates fatigue. Putting everything in dashboards means urgent issues wait until someone happens to look.
A Test for Alert-Worthy Measures
Before creating an alert, ask:
- Is it time sensitive? Does waiting until the next dashboard review cause harm or lost opportunity?
- Is it actionable? Can the recipient actually do something about it?
- Is it specific? Does it tell them where and what, not just that something is off?
- Is it rare enough? If it fires every day, it will be ignored.
- Is the right person receiving it? Alerts sent to a broad list tend to be ignored by everyone.
If the answer to any is no, the item probably belongs on a dashboard.
Examples That Often Make Good Alerts
- A referral that has gone unanswered past an agreed window.
- A shared inbox with a growing backlog.
- A phone line with unusually high abandoned calls during the day.
- Sustained long call-light waits in a particular unit, sent to the operational leader responsible, as a prompt to check in.
- An open shift within a short window that remains unfilled.
- An assessment approaching its due date without completion.
- Data feeds that have stopped updating, so leaders do not trust stale information.
Examples That Usually Belong on Dashboards
- Monthly trends in census, payer mix or A/R aging.
- Staffing patterns over weeks.
- Comparisons across buildings.
- Quality indicator trends.
- Any measure where context and history matter more than immediacy.
Design Good Alerts
- Set thresholds thoughtfully. Use your own history so alerts reflect real departures from normal.
- Require a sustained condition, not a single data point, to avoid false alarms.
- Include context in the message, such as the location, the value and a link to more detail.
- Route to the right person, with backup if they are unavailable.
- Let recipients adjust preferences, within limits.
- Review alert volume regularly, and retire alerts that are not producing action.
Design Good Dashboards
- Lead with the question the dashboard answers.
- Show exceptions prominently.
- Keep the number of measures manageable.
- Allow drill-down for investigation.
- Provide a consistent layout across buildings.
A Hypothetical Example
Picture a hypothetical group that initially sends daily alerts for ten different measures to every administrator. Within weeks, most of the messages are ignored. The group trims the list to three time-sensitive alerts, such as unanswered referrals, unfilled near-term shifts and approaching assessment deadlines, and moves the rest to a weekly dashboard review. Administrators begin responding to alerts again because they are rare and relevant.
Think About Timing
An alert at the wrong time is as bad as no alert. Consider quiet hours and escalation rules. For example, an after-hours alert for a referral might go to the admissions on-call person, with escalation to a backup if unacknowledged.
Measure Whether Alerts Work
Track how often alerts lead to action and how quickly. If an alert is consistently dismissed, refine or retire it. If an alert consistently triggers useful action, consider whether similar situations deserve alerts as well.
Support Staff, Not Surveillance
Alerts should help people do their jobs, not create a sense of being watched. Be transparent about what is being monitored and why, and focus on system-level conditions that people can act on.
A Short Design Exercise
- List the measures your leaders care about.
- Mark which are time sensitive and actionable.
- Pilot a few alerts with willing leaders.
- Collect feedback after a few weeks.
- Adjust thresholds and recipients.
Getting the Mix Right
CarePulse Analytics offers both dashboards and configurable alerts, so you can choose which measures deserve a nudge and which belong on a page. If you would like to see how that could work for your team, a demo is a good place to start.