Decision Support Framework

About

Brief Description: A medical decision dashboard that provides patients with a recommended treatment option based on patient-ranked criteria. The dashboard is designed to help patients develop meaningful understandings of the differences between alternative resources and management strategies in order to make informed judgments about treatment methods and/or approaches.   Applications: This technology will be used to support health care decision making at both the clinical and policy levels. The framework itself could also be adapted for use in any situation that involves complex decision making, meaning, any decision making situation that contains a variety of alternatives, which each offer differing combinations of strengths and weaknesses. The dashboard can be used to support decisions made by individuals and groups.   Advantages: Most decision support systems using multi-criteria methods rely primarily on a single method. The defining characteristic of this integrated multi-criteria decision framework is that it employs a unique combination of decision aiding techniques into a single integrated decision support package. All of the methods included in the framework exist and are used to support decision making. Combining them into an integrated package meets several of the currently unmet needs: 1.       It allows users to choose a method that is appropriate for their own needs and preferences as well as the requirements of each specific decision making situation. 2.       By providing multiple ways to think about a decision problem, it will help decision makers gain more insight and understanding into a decision than possible with any single method.