Digital Whiteboards

The purpose

An in-room digital whiteboard exists to answer the patient's basic questions: who is my nurse, what is the plan for today, when is my next medication, when am I likely to go home. Everything else is decoration.

What belongs on the board

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement's "What Matters to You" framework maps neatly onto four fields:

1. Care team — assigned nurse, physician, and any consulting service, updated on shift.
2. Today's plan — one sentence, in plain language.
3. Next milestones — next med, next imaging, expected mobility.
4. Discharge status — target date and remaining criteria.

How they fail

The most common failure mode is showing stale or wrong information — a nurse who went off shift two hours ago, a "goal for today" left over from admission. The cure is:

• Fewer fields, not more.
• Tighter data sources — assignment from the ADT feed, not typed.
• A workflow that makes updating the board an obvious part of shift handoff.
• A physical hide/show control so private information can be blanked on visitor arrival.