Clinical Decision Making Consultation Service

The Service examines complex management dilemmas in individual patients and provides advice based on literature review and formal decision analysis. Typical applications involve patients with multiple co-morbidities facing possible surgery, patients of unusual age or limited life expectancy and patients whose personal beliefs and values render standard management approaches potentially invalid.

These clinical decision analyses can assist physicians in making complex decisions regarding the management of patients with difficult medical conditions. The Division is unique in its method of applying computerized decision analysis to the care of individual patients. A computer program used in the Division has set a new standard for medical decision making. It allows physicians to make projections about the outcome of various testing and treatment options.

Typical consultations, which are available to physicians throughout the United States, may involve the impact of multiple diseases, the risk of alternative therapies, and the interpretation of conflicting data. Decision analysis is intended to augment the physician's personal judgment, and is particularly valuable in cases where many variables are involved. When appropriate, the patient is interviewed; the patient's attitudes toward various treatment options are then incorporated into the analysis.