Decision Support Systems in Genetic Counseling (Comments on Information, Knowledge and Values in Genetic Decision Making by Dr. Sue P. Stafford)

Author:

Marek J. Druzdzel
University of Pittsburgh
Department of Information Science
and Intelligent Systems Program
e-mail: marek@sis.pitt.edu

Abstract:

Dr. Stafford's article addresses issues that are of increasing importance and urgency: Are we prepared to deal with the advances in genetic information and, in particular, results of prenatal tests? How can we assist parents confronted with test results indicating possible genetic disorders of their babies? Can computer programs be of help to human decision makers? I am in agreement with Dr. Stafford in that computer aids to decision making have a great potential in genetic counseling and I describe one class of decision support systems (DSS) that seems to be particularly well suited for this task: systems based on decision-theoretic principles.