Official resource
V3 Public Performance Measures Dashboard
A working public dashboard built around EMS performance measures.
Why it matters
Worth studying for what it chose to leave out as much as what it shows.
Dashboards People Actually Use
A dashboard should help someone make a decision. Start with the question and the audience rather than filling a screen with every field available in the database.
The short version
A dashboard is not successful because it looks impressive. It is successful when someone can look at it, understand what is happening, and make a better decision. Start with the decision and with whose decision it is: a chief asking whether the service level promised to the community is being met needs something different from a battalion chief looking at turnout, staffing and unit availability, or a company officer asking what their crew can directly influence. Every dashboard should answer three questions — what is happening, is it getting better or worse, and is there something we should do about it. What to avoid is easier to list: too many charts, averages without distributions, measures nobody can influence, metrics without definitions, data with no date range, and anything that needs an analyst to explain it every time it is opened. The dashboard is not the decision. It is what helps a person see where another question needs asking.
Start here
If you read one thing on this subject, read this.
Go deeper
Industry article
NEMSQA Measures
Nationally developed EMS quality measures, with their definitions and denominators.
Why it matters
Before building a measure of your own, check whether one already exists and has been thought through.
Official resource
Data Insights
National fire data presented for a non-analyst audience.
Why it matters
A reference point for presentation: what is shown, and how much explanation it needs.
Questions to ask your vendor
- What decision is this dashboard meant to support, and whose decision is it?
- What is happening?
- Is it getting better or worse?
- Is there something we should do about it?
- Is every measure defined somewhere the reader can find?
- Does every chart show its date range?
- Can the audience actually influence what is being measured?
- Are we comparing stations or units that are genuinely comparable?
This is a reading list, not a guide
Everything above was published by someone else, and is here because it is the clearest treatment of the subject we could find and verify. The Hub’s own guide to this topic is still being written. If you know a better source than the ones listed, that is worth telling us before it is.
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