Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2016Estimating the Cost-Effectiveness of Implementation: Is Sufficient Evidence Available?
Timely implementation of recommended interventions can provide health benefits to patients and cost savings to …
Timely implementation of recommended interventions can provide health benefits to patients and cost savings to the health service provider. Effective approaches to increase the implementation of guidance are needed. Since investment in activities that improve implementation competes for funding against other health generating interventions, it should be assessed in term of its costs and benefits. In 2010, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence released a clinical guideline recommending natriuretic peptide (NP) testing in…
Operations Research | Health/Medicine | Chronic Disease/Risk | Clinical Care | Health Outcomes | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2015A Conceptual Model for Breast, Cervical, and Colorectal Cancer Screening
General frameworks of the cancer screening process are available, but none directly compare the process …
General frameworks of the cancer screening process are available, but none directly compare the process in detail across different organ sites. This limits the ability of medical and public health professionals to develop and evaluate coordinated screening programs that apply resources and population management strategies available for one cancer site to other sites. This paper presents a conceptual model that incorporates a single screening episode for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers into a unified framework based…
Preferences/Values | Health/Medicine | Chronic Disease/Risk | Clinical Care | Health Outcomes | Evidence Synthesis | Test Performance | Microsimulation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Science/Technology | North America -
BookPublication 1980Clinical Decision Analysis
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health …
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at the Center for the Analysis of Health Practices. The book had its origins in a set of classroom materials developed during the academic year 1974-75 for an elective course in medical decision making at the Harvard Medical School. In this book students are shown how to structure clinical decision problems, how to systematically formulate the intertwining roles of diagnosis and treatment, how to…
Preferences/Values | Probability/Bayes | Health/Medicine | Chronic Disease/Risk | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Value of Information | State-Transition | Decision Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Child/Nutrition | Economics/Finance | Global | North America | Europe | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 2024Tutorial: Building Decision Trees
This tutorial illustrates the basic steps needed to develop decision trees in Amua using a …
This tutorial illustrates the basic steps needed to develop decision trees in Amua using a disease screening example. It details the process of how to build the structure of a decision tree, parameterize the model with probabilities and relevant outcomes (i.e., life expectancy), evaluate three alternative screening strategies in a baseline scenario, and perform one-way sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of the results to different parameter values. Amua, the Swahili word meaning “decide”/“solve”, is…
Probability/Bayes | Health/Medicine | Clinical Care | Mathematical Models | Decision Analysis | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional -
ArticlePublication 2020Data-Driven Management of Post-Transplant Medications
Organ-transplanted patients typically receive high amounts of immunosuppressive drugs as a mechanism to reduce their …
Organ-transplanted patients typically receive high amounts of immunosuppressive drugs as a mechanism to reduce their risk of organ rejection. However, because of the diabetogenic effect of these drugs, this practice exposes them to a greater risk of new-onset diabetes after transplantation (NODAT), and hence, becoming insulin dependent. This study develops effective medication management strategies to address the common conundrum of balancing the risk of organ rejection versus that of NODAT. The article presents a robust…
Operations Research | Health/Medicine | Chronic Disease/Risk | Mathematical Models | North America -
ArticlePublication 2020Testing for SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies
Antibody testing can determine previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 virus. Recently, the UK government has made …
Antibody testing can determine previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 virus. Recently, the UK government has made antibody testing available to anyone wanting it, even if there is no clinical indication. The purpose of this article is to provide guidance for when to consider antibody testing in individuals with and without symptoms suggestive of current or past SARS-CoV-2 infection. Key points made by the authors include: (1) antibody testing is likely to be most useful 2 weeks…
Probability/Bayes | Health/Medicine | Clinical Care | Test Performance | Technology Assessment | Infectious Diseases -
ArticlePublication 2020Bayes' Theorem, COVID-19, and Screening Tests
This article reviews the implications of increased testing for COVID-19 using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain …
This article reviews the implications of increased testing for COVID-19 using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) through the application of Bayes’ Theorem for three hypothetical, stylized case scenarios. The scenarios involve three patients with a low, moderate, and high pre-test probability of COVID-19 infection. The category of low probability would include "asymptomatic individuals in a presumed low prevalence environment" and might vary from 10 to 20%. The category of moderate probability would include "individuals…
Probability/Bayes | Health/Medicine | Clinical Care | Test Performance | Infectious Diseases -
ArticlePublication 2020Incorporating Perspective into Clinical Decisions
Part of a six-part series of articles on clinical decision making, in this article, the …
Part of a six-part series of articles on clinical decision making, in this article, the authors discuss how to incorporate perspective into clinical decisions, explicitly acknowledging that the treating physician is not the only stakeholder in these decisions. The authors use 2 case studies to demonstrate how changes in perspective can alter the clinical decision as well lead to both intended and unintended consequences to the outcomes.
Preferences/Values | Health/Medicine | Clinical Care | Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Outcomes | Health Systems -
ArticlePublication 2020Clinical Decision Making: Using a Diagnostic Test
This article is part of a 6-part series on clinical decision making. The authors use …
This article is part of a 6-part series on clinical decision making. The authors use two clinical examples to review the principles of interpreting diagnostic test results. They outline an approach that can be used to determine how to select and apply tests and their results to the practice of internal medicine. Topics covered in the two case studies include sensitivity and specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive value of tests, and how to estimate…
Probability/Bayes | Health/Medicine | Clinical Care | Test Performance