Mini-max Regret Criterion in Patient Therapeutic Healthcare Delivery

Abstract

Medics are most often on the horn of a dilemma; they either make the right decision or live in regret. The evasion of the “we did our best” syndrome may be effectuated when a judicious choice is made with admissible constraints. The risk involved in decision-making is so inscrutable in situations that may lead to irreversibility as are observable in healthcare delivery. The Mini-max regret criterion depicts the benchmark required of a decision-maker (the caregiver) in cushioning the deleterious effect of taking a less optimal decision, possibly, in the presence of a better option. This work, while presenting such criterion, considered two treatment options-status quo (i.e. usual/existing) option and the inventive (innovative) option. The options were applied to effect both individualized and fractional treatments. The bound for the worst-case regret was furnished.a