Encyclopedia Of Medical Decision Making

Decision making is a critical element in the field of medicine that can lead to life-or-death outcomes, yet it is an element fraught with complex and conflicting variables, diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainties, patient preferences and values, and costs. The physician must determine what may be wrong with a patient and recommend a prevention or treatment strategy, generally under less than optimal circumstances and timeframes. A patient decides whether or not to follow this recommendation and, once under care, may or may not faithfully pursue recommended strategy. Health policymakers and insurers must decide what to promote, what to discourage, and what to pay for. Together, such decisions determine the quality of health care, quality that depends inherently on counterbalancing risks and benefits and competing objectives such as maximizing life expectancy versus optimizing quality of life, or quality of care versus economic realities. The Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making presents state-of-the-art research and ready-to-use facts sorting out findings on medical decision making and their applications.