Lecturer: Silvana Quaglini  

Course name: Sistemi decisionali in medicina
Course code: 503002
Degree course: Bioingegneria
Disciplinary field of science: ING-INF/06
University credits: ECTS 6
Course website: n.d.

Specific course objectives

Formalize a decision problem, identifying the variables of the domain and choosing the most suitable formalism, both for the acquisition of knowledge (interaction with the medical counterpart for the construction of the model and interaction with the patient for the elicitation of preferences) and for the purpose of solving the problem. Among the classes of decision problems, particular emphasis will be given to economic evaluations, to be performed in order to evaluate the feasibility of a health program. The course will include both lectures and practical hands-on computer.

Course programme

Introduction to decision-making; The uncertainty and preferences as fundamental problems of medical decision-making and brief review of the basic concepts of probability theory; Decision Theory: Quantifying the value of an outcome (health status, life expectancy); Methods for the quantification of utility (rating scale, standard gamble, time-trade-off; Expected utility of a decision; the QALY (Quality-adjusted life-years); probabilistic dominance; decision Trees; methodologies for the construction and resolution of decision trees; use of a software for the management of decision trees; representation of Markov processes within a decision tree; sensitivity analysis and threshold, univariate and multivariate analysis; Influence diagrams; Analogy with probabilistic networks; Methodologies for the construction and resolution; Use of a software for building and solving influence diagrams; Economic evaluations of health programs; Cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit, cost-utility; the points of view of society ', the NHS, the third-party payer; critical reading of a literature article

Course entry requirements

Probability theory

Course structure and teaching

Lectures (hours/year in lecture theatre): 45
Practical class (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0
Practicals / Workshops (hours/year in lecture theatre): 0

Suggested reading materials

MC Weinstein, HV Fineberg. L'analisi della decisione in medicina clinica. Franco Angeli, 2008.

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Testing and exams

The exam is composed by two parts: first the student is required to build and solve a decision tree concerning an economic evaluation. Second, an oral examination will be performed spanning on all the course arguments