Access to clear, reliable data is essential for informed decision making, which is important when addressing equity in health services. With the right digital tools and partnerships, complex multi-sourced data can be highlighted into clear, decision-ready insights to facilitate the communication and application of best practices. A new interactive dashboard developed through a collaboration between a group of researchers led by University of Ottawa Emeritus professor Louise Bouchard (Faculty of Social Sciences) and the University’s Datahub team is doing just that for French language long-term care services in Ontario.
Easy to interpret data for informed decision-making
A solution was needed to consolidate and facilitate the presentation data from a study that examines access to French long-term care delivered in Ontario.
The result, a geographic data visualization platform that presents a regional analysis of the supply and demand for the care that draws on population data from the 2021 Canadian Census and data from Ontario’s French Language Health Services Database.
Designed as a publicly accessible data showcase, the dashboard enables users to explore disparities across 14 Local Health integration network (LHIN) using interactive maps, filters, and comparative indicators through Power BI visualizations. Microsoft Power BI is the University’s business analytics and data visualizations platform.
While the research is robust, translating it into an intuitive, shareable format that decision-makers, healthcare providers and communities could easily understand, and use required specialized digital expertise.
"This research was aimed at shedding light on some significant inequalities. The data needed to be presented in a way that was straightforward and readily usable. With the collaboration of the Information Technology team, a clear and interactive dashboard was created as a tool to support informed decision-making," explained Professor Bouchard.
Partnering to create dynamic dashboards
Working closely with the research team, Information Technology supported the transformation of complex datasets into dynamic Power BI visualizations. By consolidating data from multiple sources, ensuring its reliability and comparability, and designing interactive visualizations, the team helped turn raw information into an intuitive, visual analytical tool. Users can filter results by region, compare population density with care capacity in surrounding areas, and examine indicators. As new data becomes available, the solution can be updated to produce more visualizations and information that the public can easily view and explore.
“This collaboration is a strong example of how digital solutions can amplify the impact of research,” said Todd Rever, Senior Manager of Institutional reporting and analytics. “By leveraging the existing PowerBI platform and in-house expertise, we can help researchers move from static reports to dynamic tools that support evidence-based decision-making.”
These data visualizations can be viewed on the FORCES Santé website, where they are available to researchers, decisionmakers and communities. Future phases of the initiative aim to expand the dataset using additional Statistics Canada sources and explore opportunities for sustained public funding, including the development of live data feeds and wider dissemination.
By combining rigorous research with advanced data visualization, this initiative shows how technology can help close the gap between evidence and action.
