ABSTRACT
Excellent clinical judgment requires optimal decision making. This chapter provides a few examples of some advances in the methods and the application of decision analysis. It considers both the advantages of the method and its limitations and offer our thoughts about the extent of the dissemination of decision analysis in medicine. Decision analysis, a derivative of operations research and game theory, involves identifying all available choices and the potential outcomes of each and structuring a model of the decision, usually in the form of a decision tree. A decision-analysis model is used to provide insight about real-world problems. The simplest sensitivity analysis involves changing the value of a single variable and recalculating the expected utility of each strategy. Some major criticisms of decision analysis have focused on the assignment of utilities to various outcome states. Such decision models, quite feasible with computer support, provide important insights into clinical disorders that evolve over time.
