Cool Model: A Clinical Decision about Medical Device Selection

A group of ParisTech’s GRID students who, under the guidance of long-time DPL user Professor Marc Lassagne (http://www.msmgr.fr/bio-des-responsables/), developed a model that will help practitioners choose the most appropriate type of hip prosthesis based on patient demographics.

The model uses 3 decisions (Material Type, Fixation Type, and Prosthesis Type) to enumerate the best overall prosthesis choice for a particular subset of patients based on the following criteria:

  • Projected Life Span
  • Activity Level
  • Bone Density Level

The Model:

A Clinical Decision Model usingDPL

The Results:

Here is a sample Policy Tree™ for patients that are expected to live another 25 years, have a bone density level of 4, and maintain high level of physical activity. You can see that the optimal choice for this patient group is an un-cemented Wrightington prosthesis made of aluminum on aluminum:

Results for a Clinical Decision Model - A DPL PolicyTree