Biomaterial Database

Decision-making situations in health care. 1995

A D Murdach

Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA 94541, USA.

Social workers in health care settings are constantly required to make clinical decisions about patient care and treatment. Although much attention has been devoted to the normative or ethical aspects of decision making in such settings, little attention has been given to the typical situational aspects of decisions social workers must make in health care. This article discusses four types of clinical decision situations--operational, strategic, authoritative, and crisis--and presents a model to assist in analyzing their components and requirements. Case vignettes drawn from practice experience illustrate each type of decision-making situation. The article concludes that knowledge of the situational aspects of practice decision making can be helpful to practitioners by enabling them to sort out courses of action and intervention.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008297	Male		Males
D008875	Middle Aged	An adult aged 45 - 64 years.	Middle Age
D010347	Patient Care Planning	Usually a written medical and nursing care program designed for a particular patient.	Nursing Care Plans,Goals of Care,Plans, Nursing Care,Care Goal,Care Goals,Care Plan, Nursing,Care Planning, Patient,Care Plans, Nursing,Nursing Care Plan,Plan, Nursing Care,Planning, Patient Care
D011340	Problem Solving	A learning situation involving more than one alternative from which a selection is made in order to attain a specific goal.
D003419	Crisis Intervention	Brief therapeutic approach which is ameliorative rather than curative of acute psychiatric emergencies. Used in contexts such as emergency rooms of psychiatric or general hospitals, or in the home or place of crisis occurrence, this treatment approach focuses on interpersonal and intrapsychic factors and environmental modification. (APA Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, 7th ed)	Brief Advice,Brief Interventions,Brief Treatment,Critical Incident Stress Debriefing,Screening and Brief Intervention,Advice, Brief,Brief Intervention,Brief Treatments,Crisis Interventions,Intervention, Brief,Intervention, Crisis,Treatment, Brief
D003657	Decision Making	The process of making a selective intellectual judgment when presented with several complex alternatives consisting of several variables, and usually defining a course of action or an idea.	Credit Assignment,Assignment, Credit,Assignments, Credit,Credit Assignments
D003661	Decision Support Techniques	Mathematical or statistical procedures used as aids in making a decision. They are frequently used in medical decision-making.	Decision Analysis,Decision Modeling,Models, Decision Support,Analysis, Decision,Decision Aids,Decision Support Technics,Aid, Decision,Aids, Decision,Analyses, Decision,Decision Aid,Decision Analyses,Decision Support Model,Decision Support Models,Decision Support Technic,Decision Support Technique,Model, Decision Support,Modeling, Decision,Technic, Decision Support,Technics, Decision Support,Technique, Decision Support,Techniques, Decision Support
D005260	Female		Females
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000328	Adult	A person having attained full growth or maturity. Adults are of 19 through 44 years of age. For a person between 19 and 24 years of age, YOUNG ADULT is available.	Adults