Heuristic decision making in medicine

Abstract

Can less information be more helpful when it comes to making medical decisions? Contrary to the common intuition that more information is always better, the use of heuristics can help both physicians and patients to make sound decisions. Heuristics are simple decision strategies that ignore part of the available information, basing decisions on only a few relevant predictors. We discuss: (i) how doctors and patients use heuristics; and (ii) when heuristics outperform information-greedy methods, such as regressions in medical diagnosis. Furthermore, we outline those features of heuristics that make them useful in health care settings. These features include their surprising accuracy, transparency, and wide accessibility, as well as the low costs and little time required to employ them. We close by explaining one of the statistical reasons why heuristics are accurate, and by pointing to psychiatry as one area for future research on heuristics in health care.