Tutorial for TreatmentScores.com

Last updated: 2015/08/18

This is a step-by-step tutorial for how to use the website TreatmentScores.com. In addition to this document, we plan to have a video on each page which will explain what you can do on that page.


Introduction

We have created tools to allow you and everyone else in the world to quantify the science of medicine behind medical treatments. These are educational tools only. We call our overall software the Treatment Score Analyzer™.


The Treatment Score Analyzer™ consists of four tools:


  1. Diagnosis Tool™
  2. Treatment Organizer™
  3. Treatment Score Calculator™
  4. STAR Blocks™ = StaaR Blocks™


STAR™ Blocks™ = Statistic and a Reference.


The overall concept is to create a diagnosis, organize a list of treatments for that diagnosis, and calculate Science of Medicine (SOM®) Treatment Scores by using data collected with the STAR Blocks™. Basically, we are providing you all the tools to do evidence-based medicine.


Log in or Register

You will need to login or register for the website.


Diagnosis Tool™

You start with the Diagnoses Tool™.


The diagnosis tool is used to create a list of diagnoses that you are particularly interested in or that other people have worked on. There is a search box at the top left of the diagnoses list, which you can use to search for a diagnosis. If you cannot find the diagnosis you need you can create one.




Add Diagnosis Button

If you don't see the diagnosis you need, look over to the right, and click on the "Add Diagnosis" button.



The "Add Diagnosis" button will take you to a form where you can fill in a new diagnosis. You will be able to fill in up to 10 levels for the diagnosis. You will also need to fill in a main outcome, a follow-up time period, and fill in your name as an author. These things can be changed and edited later. You can edit and delete the diagnosis by using the buttons at the right end of the row. One button is for editing, and one button is for deleting.




Once You Have Found or Created a Diagnosis

Once you have found or created a diagnosis, you will want to hit the "Tx" icon on the left side of the diagnosis you are interested in.



Hitting the "Tx" icon will take you to the Treatment Organizer™


The Treatment Organizer™

The Treatment Organizer™ page is indicated by the phrase at the top left.


The Treatment Organizer™ has the diagnosis on the left and the treatment list on the right. If you just look at the left side you see something like this.




If you look at the entire Treatment Organizer™ you see something like this below. Note that at the bottom is a box. The box says "new treatment." You can enter a treatment in ther box and hit "add."




You can add any treatment you want, but remember that after you add a treatment you will be looking up the science of medicine behind it. You can add treatments from Western medicine, Eastern medicine, Herbal medicine, Alternative medicine, or any form of Complimentary medicine. Finally, you will be able to create a treatment list for every treatment you want to know about, not just the top 3 or 5, or whatever articles usually provide you with. You will also be able to create a list of treatments from every specialty in medicine. You can have surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, herbs, and acupuncture all in your list, and you can find the science behind all of them. Each specialty of medicine rarely knows all the data behind all the treatments from the other fields, they typically concentrate their time and effort on their own treatments.


You Can Get Great Graphics like This

Many people believe there has been a great advance in the treatment of Hepatitis C. This may enable you to create a treatment list like the one below. It shows that the science of medicine behind the new drug Harvoni suggests it is far more effect than the old "Gold Standard" treatment that was based on interferon.




And below is a smaller more focused graphic looking at treatments for Ebola in Africa.




Using our tools you can create a diagnosis, and then a "Treatment List" and then you can create "Treatment Scores" for those treatments. You do this by gathering the statistics you need to quantify the science of medicine. You will end up with a graphic like this one above. You have our permission to create a graphic from the Treatment Organizer™ page and spread it around. You can create a graphic like the one above by creating a screen shot of the work you have done, which results in the creation of this Treatment Organizer™ page. You must create a big graphic which shows the disclaimer and then you can focus in on a smaller graphic that is just the list.


You can put these graphics out there with treatment lists, treatment scores, and treatment grades in your writings, essays, and blogs. But you must also link back to TreatmentScores.com so others can click through the scores to the numbers and see how good your evidence-based medicine thought process is.


ALWAYS INCLUDE THE DISCLAIMER: You must see your own licensed medical physician for diagnosis and treatment. You cannot create other graphics from our website, but instead must link back for the others because they are interactive. The Treatment List for treating Ebola in Africa is a great example of how controversial treatments can be. We expect many users to look at the same data and to come to different conclusions. It is also a treatment list for which the science is rapidly evolving.


Calculator Button

It's time to hit the calculator button.



Hitting the calculator button takes you to the Treatment Score Calculator™.




Then you hit the "not scored" text under the word "score" or hit the exiting statistic under the word "score", which will take you to the STAR™ block page.


STAR™ Block Page

When you arrive at the STAR Blocks™ page you will see some graphic like this in the upper left.




You can put in a PubMed identification number in the box and it will create a STAR™ block for you all about that medical study. You can also create an empty STAR™ block if you have a different source of data.




The STAR™ block is about capturing a statistic you need and it's reference information. STAR™ stands for Statistic and a Reference.


The STAR™ block Short

The short form of the STAR™ block looks like this.




The STAR™ block Long

The current long form of the STAR™ block looks like this.




The most important thing is to find the "Statistic We Have." The other important things to do are to do the ratings that go with the STAR™ block. The ratings will automatically be changed to grades for you, which will show up on the green (green for grades) boxes. The relevance and overall quality of the STAR™ block statistic for the diagnosis we are looking at are entered all the way on the right side.


Statistic We Want

In medicine, there is the "Statistic We Want," which is a statistic from a perfect randomized controlled trial. There was also the "Statistic We Have," which often comes from a less than perfect study such as a case series study. The "Statistic We Want" shows up in the top left of the STAR™ blocks page.


Statistic We Have

The "Statistic We Have" shows up in the actual STAR Block™ itself.


Statistic We'll Use

What we have to do is take a look at the statistics we have and come up with the Statistic We'll Use. Once you have created a bunch of STAR Blocks™ from the best studies you can find, you click the "use" button, which creates a decision box between the studies that you are going to use in your decision and in the studies that you are not going to use.


Decision Box

In the decision box you put in the "Statistic We'll Use" and in the comments section of the decision box you describe how you decided upon that statistic. Also in the comment box you should put all the estimations and assumptions that have to be made to come up with the Statistic We'll Use.




The Statistic We'll Use is what shows up in the Treatment Score Calculator.


There are many little buttons to update the star blocks and to update the Decision Box. It is important to update the STAR Blocks™ and the Decision Box when you make changes to them.


Hierarchy

The way to move backwards and forwards through the system is to use the hierarchy at the top of the page. The hierarchy consists of links at the top left and looks as below:




Moneyball

If you would like to get a good layman's perspective on what we're trying to do watch the movie Moneyball starring Brad Pitt. You should also read Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Both the movie and the book are about George William "Bill" James, who is widely credited as being the father of Sabermetrics. What Bill James discovered was that baseball was not using the right statistics. So he invented new ones.


We had no idea about Sabermetrics when we started the quantification of the science of medicine. However, when we learned about it by watching the movie when it showed up on Cable, and then read the book, we discovered some similarities. Bill James wanted to understand baseball better. We want to understand medical treatments better. We have always been told that the quantification of the science of medicine behind medical treatments is impossible.


Today, what used to be impossible is being done. Baseball is being quantified with Sabermetrics. Basketball is being quantified with the Pythagorean expectation to the 14th power. And now, we are quantifying something really important: the science of medicine behind medical treatments. We are using evidence-based medicine guidelines.


Videos

We will be placing short, fast, instructional videos on every page of the website tools to guide you through the process. By clicking on the videos on the exact page that you are working on, we hope that you will very quickly learn how to use our tools.


Disclaimer

The TreatmentScores.com website, and all feeder URLs, are for educational purposes only. YOU MUST SEE YOU OWN LICENSED MEDICAL PHYSICIAN FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT. We say this because understanding the science of medicine behind medical treatments and other clinical decisions is only the starting point for a discussion with your licensed medical physician. SOM® Treatment Scores or SOM® Treatment Grades can be completely wrong or even harmful. You must agree to our Terms of Service, Disclaimers, and Privacy Policy before accessing our website.