Medical Decision Making: A Health Economic Primer

This textbook offers a comprehensive analysis of medical decision-making under uncertainty by combining test information theory with expected utility theory. The authors show how the parameters of Bayes’ theorem can be combined with a value function of health states in order to arrive at informed test and treatment decisions in the face of diagnostic and therapeutic risks. Distinguishing between risk-neutral, risk-averse, and prudent decision-makers, they demonstrate the effects of risk pre...