Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Foreword to the first edition (2001)
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- list of Abbreviations
- About the authors
- 1 Elements of decision making in health care
- 2 Managing uncertainty
- 3 Choosing the best treatment
- 4 Valuing outcomes
- 5 Interpreting diagnostic information
- 6 Deciding when to test
- 7 Multiple test results
- 8 Finding and summarizing the evidence
- 9 Constrained resources
- 10 Recurring events
- 11 Estimation, calibration, and validation
- 12 Heterogeneity and uncertainty
- 13 Psychology of judgment and choice
- Index
- References
4 - Valuing outcomes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Foreword
- Foreword to the first edition (2001)
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- list of Abbreviations
- About the authors
- 1 Elements of decision making in health care
- 2 Managing uncertainty
- 3 Choosing the best treatment
- 4 Valuing outcomes
- 5 Interpreting diagnostic information
- 6 Deciding when to test
- 7 Multiple test results
- 8 Finding and summarizing the evidence
- 9 Constrained resources
- 10 Recurring events
- 11 Estimation, calibration, and validation
- 12 Heterogeneity and uncertainty
- 13 Psychology of judgment and choice
- Index
- References
Summary
Values are what we care about. As such, values should be the driving force for our decision making. They should be the basis for the time and effort we spend thinking about decisions. But this is not the way it is. It is not even close to the way it is.
Ralph KeeneyIntroduction
Value judgments underlie virtually all clinical decisions. Sometimes the decision rests on a comparison of probability alone, such as the probability of surviving an acute episode of illness. In such cases, there is a single outcome measure – the probability of immediate survival – that can be averaged out to arrive at an optimal decision. In most cases, however, decisions between alternative strategies require not only estimates of the probabilities of the associated outcomes, but also value judgments about how to weigh the benefits versus the harms, and how to incorporate other factors like individual preferences for convenience, timing, who makes decisions, who else is affected by the decision, and the like. Consider the following examples.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Decision Making in Health and MedicineIntegrating Evidence and Values, pp. 78 - 117Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
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