Resources Repository
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ReviewPublication 2001Modeling for Health Care and Other Policy Decisions: Uses, Roles and Validity
This is a review article of the role of modeling approaches to guide decision making …
This is a review article of the role of modeling approaches to guide decision making in health care and other domains. The role of models to support recommendations on the cost-effective use of medical technologies and pharmaceuticals is controversial. At the heart of the controversy is the degree to which experimental or other empirical evidence should be required prior to model use. The authors argue that the controversy stems in part from a misconception that…
Mathematical Models | Priority Setting/Ethics | Evidence Synthesis | Technology Assessment | Environmental Health | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Climate/Environment | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | North America -
Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 1980Threshold Approach to Clinical Decision Making
This classic paper provides a "tutorial" for students learning about diagnostic testing, probability revision, and …
This classic paper provides a "tutorial" for students learning about diagnostic testing, probability revision, and how to calculate thresholds for testing, treatment, and no treatment. The authors describe how a physician's estimate of the probability that a patient has a particular disease is a principal factor in the determination of whether to withhold treatment, obtain more data by testing, or treat without subjecting the patient to the risks of further diagnostic tests. Using the concepts of decision analysis,…
Test Performance | Probability/Bayes | Value of Information | Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine -
ReviewPublication 1978Basic Principles of ROC Analysis
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the …
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the concepts of the "sensitivity" and "specificity" yet even these do not provide a unique description of diagnostic performance because they depend on the arbitrary selection of a decision threshold. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is shown to be a simple yet complete empirical description of this decision threshold effect, indicating all possible combinations of the relative frequencies of the…
Test Performance | Clinical Care | Health/Medicine