Encyclopedia Of Medical Decision Making

The Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making presents state-of-the-art research and ready-to-use facts sorting out findings on medical decision making and their applications.

Decision making is a critical element in the field of medicine that can lead to life-or-death outcomes, yet it is an element fraught with complex and conflicting variables, diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainties, patient preferences and values, and costs. Together, decisions made by physicians, patients, insurers, and policymakers determine the quality of health care, quality that depends inherently on counterbalancing risks and benefits and competing objectives such as maximizing life expectancy versus optimizing quality of life or quality of care versus economic realities. Broadly speaking, concepts in medical decision making (MDM) may be divided into two major categories: prescriptive and descriptive. Work in the area of prescriptive MDM investigates how medical decisions should be done using complicated analyses and algorithms to determine cost-effectiveness measures, prediction methods, and so on. In contrast, descriptive MDM studies how decisions actually are made involving human judgment, biases, social influences, patient factors, and so on. The Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making gives a gentle introduction to both categories, revealing how medical and healthcare decisions are actually made—and constrained—and how physician, healthcare management, and patient decision making can be improved to optimize health outcomes. Key Features Discusses very general issues that span many aspects of MDM, including bioethics; health policy and economics; disaster simulation modeling; medical informatics; the psychology of decision making; shared and team medical decision making; social, moral, and religious factors; end-of-life decision making; assessing patient preference and patient adherence; and more Incorporates both quantity and quality of life in optimizing a medical decision Considers characteristics of the decisionmaker and how those characteristics influence their decisions Presents outcome measures to judge the quality or impact of a medical decision Examines some of the more commonly encountered biostatistical methods used in prescriptive decision making Provides utility assessment techniques that facilitate quantitative medical decision making Addresses the many different assumption perspectives the decision maker might choose from when trying to optimize a decision Offers mechanisms for defining MDM algorithms With comprehensive and authoritative coverage by experts in the fields of medicine, decision science and cognitive psychology, and healthcare management, this two-volume Encyclopedia is a must-have resource for any academic library.

As effective organizational decision making is a major factor in a company's success, a comprehensive account of current available research on the core concepts of the decision support agenda is in high demand by academicians and professionals. Through 110 authoritative contributions by over 160 of the world's leading experts the Encyclopedia of Decision Making and Decision Support Technologies presents a critical mass of research on the most up-to-date research on human and computer support of managerial decision making, including discussion on support of operational, tactical, and strategic decisions, human vs. computer system support structure, individual and group decision making, and multi-criteria decision making.

The topic of health care management has escalated to one of the most widely discussed and debated topics in the health care industry, MBA programs, and in the field of medicine in general. In the 1980s, the industry was relatively stable and the need for combining business acumen with medicine was less than today. However, as we enter the 21st century, the need for applying business and management skills to the health care industry is stronger than ever. This Encyclopedia covers every topic a medical professional, institutional administrator, or MBA student would need to know about the business of health care. Key Features * Over 600 entries * More than 160 expert contributors from the fields of medicine, public health, business * Tables on medical degrees, medical specialties, medical organizations, health care acronyms, medical legislation * Unites the business and medical worlds, and spans the academic, corporate, and governmental arenas Topics Covered Accounting and Activity-Based Costing / Economics / Finance / Health Policy / Human Resources / Information Technology / Institutions and Organizations / International Health Care Issues / Legal and Regulatory Issues / Managed Care / Marketing and Customer Value / Operations and Decision Making / Pharmaceuticals and Clinical Trials / Quality / Statistics and Data Mining / Strategy

Drawn from the extensive database of Guide to Reference, this up-to-date resource provides an annotated list of print and electronic biomedical and health-related reference sources, including internet resources and digital image collections.