MD-AT - A PHYSICIAN-FRIENDLY DECISION-ANALYSIS TOOL

The cost-effective use of medical resources is increasingly important in justifying strategies for medical diagnosis and management. Althoug h some software is available to help with decision analysis, it can be difficult to use these tools for medical applications. We have develo ped a prototype package for modeling various medical decision strategi es, which can be used with a Macintosh or Windows-based personal compu ter. The system is graphically based, intuitive, and user-friendly. Th e user constructs decision trees for comparing alternative strategies for diagnosis and management. Selecting blocks from a library, the use r sets mean values for variables such as prevalence, sensitivity, spec ificity, cost, morbidity, and mortality. The system then generates the probabilities of various pathways, using Bayesian analysis, without r equiring the user to enter equations. It displays the best strategy in terms of a particular criterion and, when appropriate, performs sensi tivity analysis.