Visualizing Daily Hospital Routine

The authors describe a research project at the Bern University Hospital Inselspital to analyse data provided by the quality management department with a view to re-presenting the data through visualisation techniques. The sets of data involved four themes: waiting times; pressure sores risk; ward rounds and cooperation between interns and nursing staff; and patient discharge. An investigation of the visual content of each theme was followed by selection of an appropriate 'visual density' for the data, balancing retaining complexity of data while allowing individual aspects to remain comprehensible. A wall installation of the visualisation was created, using varied media such as card sets, posters, or fold-out booklets for different visualisations to allow experimentation as to their suitability. As the data had already been analysed statistically, it was possible to assess how the visualisation made aspects visible that had been lost in the statistical presentation, and in addition provided a condensed overview of the data which prompted a reconsideration by medical staff of assumptions made from the statistical data format.