A Care Quality Dashboard for General Practitioners Managing Patients with Diabetes Mellitus Type 2: User- Centered Design and Evaluation of a Prototype

Background Diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2D) is a growing burden in Switzerland, where general practitioners face increasing workload. To evaluate the quality of T2D care, the Swiss Society of Endocrinology and Diabetology (SGED) developed the SGED score. However, its practical use is hampered by paper-based workflows and fragmented documentation. Currently, there is no dashboard specifically for the visualization of the SGED score, which overviews aggregated population parameters such as HbA1c or blood pressure. To address this gap, this study derived functional requirements for a dashboard and developed a high-fidelity prototype through an iterative, user-centered design process, in collaboration with healthcare professionals. This approach explores how such a dashboard needs to align with clinical needs to enhance usability and promote adoption in routine T2D management. Methods An iterative, user-centered three-step approach was employed, involving 14 semi-structured interviews with Swiss T2D healthcare professionals. Step 1 involved defining the project scope and identifying functional requirements. Step 2 collected more requirements and prioritized all of them using the “Must Have”, “Should Have”, “Could Have”, “Won’t Have” (MoSCoW) method. In step 3, a high-fidelity Figma dashboard prototype was developed and iteratively refined based on the requirements and user feedback. Results Key functional requirements included reminder and alert functions, color-coded critical values, demographic overviews, trend analyses, benchmarking within networks, and exportable reports. Additional needs emerged for patient-level views, integrated checklists, inclusion of comorbidities, and personal or practice-specific goal-setting features. Iterative refinements based on user feedback improved clarity, usability, and visual appeal. Some participants highlighted the dashboard’s intuitive design, clear and diverse visualizations, and benchmarking functionalities, describing it as both engaging and efficient. Others raised concerns about limited suitability for daily clinical workflows, potential integration challenges with existing systems, and the need for interactive, patient-centered features to support routine care. Conclusion The proposed dashboard could enhance T2D care through features like population overviews, long-term visualizations, and anonymized benchmarking. Successful clinical adoption will heavily depend on interoperability and seamless integration into existing workflows. The identified requirements provide a foundation for future digital T2D management systems.