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URL: http://thedecisiontree.com/blog/?p=278

Proper Citation: The Decision Tree (RRID:SCR_008622)

Description: In many respects, this book will be an extension of many of the preoccupations Ive pursued here at Epidemix. Those handful of you who follow my magazine writing will no doubt recognize the theme as well. The premise is that we are at a new phase of health and medical care, where more decisions are being made by individuals on their own behalf, rather than by physicians, and that, furthermore, these decisions are being informed by new tools based on statistics, data, and predictions. This is a good thing it will let us, the general public, live better, happier, and even longer lives. But it will require us to be stewards of our health in ways we may not be prepared for. We will act on the basis of risk factors and predictive scores, rather than on conventional wisdom and doctors recommendations. We will act in collaboration with others, drawing on collective experience with health and disease, rather than in the isolation and ignorance that can come with privacy concerns. And we will act early, well before symptoms appear, opting to tap the science of genomics and proteomics in order to mitigate our risks down the road. Together, these tools will create a new opportunity and a new responsibility for people to act to make health decisions well before they become patients. This can be characterized as a decision tree, a series of informed choices we will make to minimize uncertainty and optimize our outcomes. Indeed, we will use decision trees to navigate most of our health decisions, sometimes in overt ways new decision support tools will both inform us and guide us, and theyll be steeped in statistics, predicition, and the power of collective experience.

Synonyms: Decision Tree

Resource Type: data or information resource, portal, topical portal