ePrognosis: How to Use

How to Use

To illustrate the clinical application of prognostic indices, we highlight 3 common clinical scenarios for older adults in which the consideration of prognosis may improve decision making:

Case 1: Cancer screening

Case 2: Hospice eligibility

Case 3: Incidental pulmonary nodule

Web resource helps assess life expectancy - - ModernMedicine website: ePrognosis.org

Blogger's Note:

“Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” Albert Einstein

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"A set of prognostic indices used to calculate a patient’s life expectancy has been created and posted on a new Web site.

The site, www.ePrognosis.org, was created in conjunction with a review of these assessments that was published in JAMA (2012; 307:182-92). That study concluded that the most accurate and usable indices might have value when used in conjunction with other clinical information.
Many medical interventions, including those for urologic and other cancers, have guidelines recommending that physicians take a patient’s life expectancy into account, said senior investigator Alexander K. Smith, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Francisco. "Given this goal, it would be ideal if there were one index that would allow you to plug in your patient’s information—age, diseases, functional impairments—and get an accurate long-term prognosis.

"Unfortunately, there is not. In the absence of that, we have this systematic review and corresponding online compendium, which we hope physicians will find a useful adjunct, along with patient preferences and their own professional judgments, in making clinical decisions that involve life expectancy," Dr. Smith said........