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Decision Science Group
Nearly all health care interventions depend on human decisions and behaviors. To achieve their potential to improve patient outcomes, interventions must be adopted by health care organizations, clinicians, and patients. In turn, how each group makes decisions will affect how health care interventions ultimately impact care.
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This is the "why" behind the Decision Science Group (DSG): to use intersectional insight from decision-making sciences to strengthen the connection between health care interventions and patient outcomes.
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Read on to learn more about the DSG. We encourage all those interested in learning more or engaging to fill out our contact form.
Human decisions and behaviors represent "final common pathways" for nearly all health care interventions.
Therefore, the impact of these interventions depends on how organizations, clinicians, and patients decision and behave.
Why We Exist
To use intersectional insight from the science of decision-making to strengthen the connection between health care interventions and patient outcomes.
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Who We Are
The DSG reflects a group of individuals from inside and outside of health care, including clinicians from different specialties (e.g., medicine, surgery), public health experts, researchers (e.g., in the areas of health services, care delivery, and clinical outcomes), and decision scientists (e.g., scholars in areas such as marketing and behavioral economics). Core members include faculty in the UW School of Medicine, UW School of Public Health, and UW Foster School of Business.
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What We Do
The DSG seeks to bridge research and implementation related to health care decision-making. It does so by fostering a community of individuals with shared interests in health decisions and behaviors, and by facilitating collaborative projects in one or more of the following forms:​
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Validation. This work involves testing decision science principles as they apply to health care topics. There is a need for these activities because many decision or behavioral science principles have either not yet been applied to health care, or not yet applied to specific areas or decisions within health care. The goal of this work is generate foundational insight that can then be tested in real-world settings.
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Design. This work involves designing interventions using decision science principles. The goal is to increase the likelihood that any given interventions can best support the intended organizational, clinician, and/or patient decisions.
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Implementation. This work involves collaborating with partners to deploy interventions, designed with decision science principles in mind, in real-world clinical or other settings.
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Evaluation. This work involves using both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the intended and unintended impacts of health interventions. Quantitative work includes the application of advanced regression and quasi-experimental analyses. Qualitative work includes the use of interviews and other methods to conduct formative assessments of new or emerging decision-making phenomena.
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How We Do Our Work
One of the guiding principles of the DSG is that form should fit function, and much of the Group's work occurs among collaborators on a project-by-project basis.
How We Share What We Learn
We share insights and findings from our work in several ways. These include presentation at national meetings, publication in peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed venues, and written or in-person briefs with decision-makers.