Dashboards will have several uses in the EMR environment.

ICUs for displaying those 3-page wide flowsheets of clinical data: intake, output, vital signs, lab, drips, PCA.
Chronic disease overviews: lab, home monitoring results, vital signs, prompts for next lab or immunization
Quality Improvement: compliance with standards, progress toward targets, peer comparisons
Pay for Performance: Budget, progress toward targets, return on investment
Management dashboards: trends, year-to-year comparisons, key performance indicators

Here are some nice examples

Traffic light (colored dots of red) in the second column. Sparklines in the third column. Bullet graphs in the rightmost columns.

Microbar graphs on the lowest row, with sparklines just above them.

After you sketch out a new dashboard with pencil and paper, you may want to dress it up to show off before you start spending engineer time on it.

Here is a nice PowerPoint template for making high-fidelity wireframe mock-ups.
Download Dashboard Template