The vast sea of data available to safety net healthcare providers is only helpful if staff can interpret and use that data. Enter dashboards, which enable data-sharing among staff—from frontline to administrative staff and across all departments and sites—in a consistent, visually accessible way. As one of the most-used strategies for participants in the Safety Net Analytics Program (SNAP), dashboards can guide safety net organizations’ staff and their practices to become more effective across business operations, clinical care and patient experience. This case study details challenges, strategies and outcomes for SNAP participants who harnessed the power of dashboards to strengthen their data analytics capabilities, and provides key takeaways for making dashboards useful and strategic assets across an organization.

SNAP, implemented by Center for Care Innovations and funded by California Health Care Foundation, launched in November 2014 to increase the data analytics capabilities of healthcare safety net organizations to strengthen and improve patient care. The 14-month, cohort-based pilot provided a comprehensive set of supports to 20 organizations including learning sessions (webinars and in-person day-long conferences), individualized coaching, homework and planning tools, networking and financial support.

Resources, tools and instructional content from the Safety Net Analytics Program have been brought together as a video learning series, Building a Data Driven Culture, in addition to publications based on our evaluation findings:

• Case study: How Analytics Transform a Health Home Model: Contra Costa Develops a Predictive Model for Their High Utilizer Population
• Case study: Building a Data-Driven Culture: The Heartbeat of Value-Based Care
• Field brief: A Model for Improving Health Care Data Analytics