Model-based medical decision support - A road to improved diagnosis and treatment?

Abstract

The hypothesis is advanced that model-based medical decision support is a methodology, which may be appropriate for construction of medical decision support systems. The methodology, which is based on a combination of structural modeling and decision theory is outlined through three medical applications. All three applications have been brought to the point where they can be subjected to rigorous clinical testing. One of them, Treat for advising on antibiotic treatment, belongs to the small group of systems for which it has even been possible to show an improvement in patient outcome. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.