Treatment Scores, Inc. was started by a few physicians who wanted to help patients understand evidence-based medicine. There have been tremendous obstacles to even getting this project started. We hope you will help us!
We are sick of the confusion! We are tired of how little people understand medical treatments, including medical treatments for very serious diagnoses like Stage 4 Cervical Cancer, Stage 4 Prostate Cancer, or Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. We are also very dissatisfied about how well people understand the treatments for common things like pain, insomnia, and toenail fungus!
We believe that the future of medicine is treatment scores and treatment grades, because everyone needs to understand the science of medicine behind treatments better. Today, patients and caretakers often know very little about the science of medicine. Treatment scores and treatment grades are a way to help make evidence-based medicine more visual and more understandable.
Physicians routinely study the medical literature and gather the statistics that they need for making clinical decisions. TreatmentScores.com wants to make this process much more organized, and more visual, so that everyone around the world can participate in doing evidence-based medicine reviews of the medical literature.
There are mountains of data out there that no one understands.
TreatmentScores.com is an Alpha website, Alpha meaning that it is very early in its development. We need your help and patience to improve the website and produce the tools that everyone around the world needs. Our website may be hard to use, and may not be as intuitive as we want it to be initially, because improvements often take a lot of thinking, designing, and programming. Producing better transparency in medicine is a daunting and nearly impossible task. We have been told that it is impossible!
We always give a warning: The TreatmentScores.com website is for educational purposes only; you must see your own licensed medical physician for diagnosis and treatment. We say this because understanding the science of medicine behind treatments is only the starting point for a discussion with your licensed medical physician. Treatment scores can be completely wrong or even harmful to your health, so you must agree to our Terms of Service and Disclaimers before accessing our website.
This hasn’t been done before because the math is complex. On average, one diagnosis may have 10 treatments. Each of those treatments may have 10 vital statistics. Each of those statistics may come from 10 different references. Each of those references may have 10 variables. That's 10×10×10×10 = 10,000 pieces of information that must be processed and transformed. Today, we have the perfect storm of Internet technology, new database technology, and new statistical methods that make it possible to begin to quantify the science of medicine.
The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCORI) team says, "Every day, patients and their caregivers are faced with crucial health care decisions while lacking key information that they need."1
PCORI also says that we need to translate "…existing scientific research into accessible and useable formats…"2
The problem for patients is that the medical literature is in a huge, dark, underground cavern of 22.5 million medical studies. It’s difficult to get into the cave, and after getting down there the medical vocabulary is incomprehensible and the statistics are incredibly difficult. Even the most highly skilled patient cannot overcome all these obstacles and the “avalanche of big data.”
Every once in a while, a physician (or other expert) enters the cave, shines a flashlight into the darkness, and comes out to explain a very narrow area of the hard scientific data to a patient. Then, it all goes dark again.
Our Treatment Score Analyzer™ goes into that huge dark cavern, wires it with electricity, and turns the lights on forever by producing Science of Medicine (SOM®) treatment scores.
Dr. Suneetha Moonesinghe says: "The ideal tool would…be simple and quick to use…but such a tool remains elusive."4
Dr. Richard Fogoros, a cardiologist, wrote: "This analysis shows what seems like a pretty good way to make some big bucks in healthcare while simultaneously saving lives: Figure out how to empower patients. Any enterprise that can supply patients with clear, correct, relevant, personal, and specific knowledge that enables them to protect themselves and their loved ones…will endear itself to…patients. Furthermore, anyone supplying such knowledge will be feeding a growing need for more. People's desire for the information to manage their own healthcare and the means to act on that information will become more than just a desire—it will become an expectation. A massive business opportunity awaits."5
Dr. Fogoros, who wrote before Treatment Scores Inc. existed, also penned, "Nobody knows what patient empowerment will actually look like, because it hasn't been invented yet."
Our Treatment Score Analyzer™ is the solution. Remember the early days of the computer when only those who could do machine programming could use a computer? Then, Apple and Windows put on a graphical user interface and suddenly everyone could use a computer?
We have put a graphical User Interface (GUI) over the evidence-based medicine process, and we are making it so simple that doctors, nurses, AND PATIENTS AND LOVED ONES everywhere around the world can do it. Our Treatment Score Analyzer™ allows for better organization and processing of medical information so that shared-decision making with your licensed medical physician might finally be possible.
Imagine a simple treatment list like the generic one below for prostate cancer. What we help figure out is the Science of Medicine (SOM®) treatment score and treatment grade for each treatments. What the data in the medical literature says. That’s the starting point for medical education.
With our system, we hope that Western Medicine, Eastern Medicine, herbal medicine, and all forms of Alternative Medicine will finally be sharing data. We want to see the science of medicine from all sources, from all journals, from every type of medicine.
We also hope that every specialty in medicine will finally be sharing data. Right now one specialty of medicine is often unaware of the studies published by another specialty of medicine. One specialty of medicine is often completely unaware of the studies published by another specialty, because they don’t have time to read every existing medical journal. However everyone would be able to read the results of the Treatment Score Analyzer™ in seconds to minutes.
Celebrities like actress Pamela Anderson and singer Naomi Judd have talked openly about their hepatitis C viral infections. Fortunately for Hepatitis C sufferers, a new a new drug has come to market called Harvoni.
The old “Gold Standard” treatment for hepatitis C with interferon was difficult to take and was only curative in a minority of cases.
When we saw the TV advertisement for Harvoni, we were skeptical. However, the new drug, Harvoni, does have good science of medicine behind it.
Drug companies say it takes 15 years for a new treatment to filter through the medical system. Medical device companies say it takes 15 to 20 years for a better device to filter through the system. Doctors who want to use new drugs and new medical devices are often frustrated. Our website may help speed up the usage of treatments that are supported by good science.
Baseball has been quantified with Sabermetrics. Basketball is being quantified with the Pythagorean expectation to the 14th power. Now, it’s time to quantify something really important—life and death important—the science of medicine behind medical treatments.
Always see your own licensed medical physician for diagnosis and treatment. We cannot assume any responsibility for your diagnosis and treatment, because things are just too complex; too full of estimations and assumptions.
1"Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Funding Announcement: Communication and Dissemination." PCORI. Published May 22, 2012, Revised September 17, 2012, Page 2. Accessed December 1, 2012, http://www.pcori.org/assets/FINAL-PFA-Communication-and-Dissemination-v3.pdf
2“Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Funding Announcement: Communication and Dissemination.” PCORI. Published May 22, 2012, Revised September 17, 2012, P. 7. Accessed December 1, 2012, http://www.pcori.org/assets/FINAL-PFA-Communication-and-Dissemination-v3.pdf
3Fraser AG, Dunstan FD. “On the impossibility of being expert.” BMJ. 2010 Dec 14;341:c6815. doi: 10.1136/bmj.c6815.
4"Study Looks for ‘Best’ Risk Stratification Tool So Patients Make the Most Informed Surgical Decision." News Release from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) 9/18/2013. http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/607756/
5Richard M. Fogoros, M.D., Fixing American Healthcare, 2007, Publish Or Perish DBS, Pittsburg, page 31.