Johnson H A
Three Lincoln Center, New York, NY 10023-6560, USA.
Clin Chem. 1995 May;41(5):781-4; discussion 813-6.
In estimating the cost-effectiveness of diagnostic procedures, it is helpful to treat diagnostic information as a commodity with a unit price. The amount of useful information provided by a test result can be measured in binary units (bits), and the unit price of the information produced by the test result can be expressed in dollars per bit in much the same way that the price of gold is given in dollars per ounce. This allows comparison of the unit prices of various diagnostic tests, examination of the effect of multiple testing, and calculation of the most cost-effective conditions for screening tests.
在评估诊断程序的成本效益时，将诊断信息视为具有单位价格的商品会很有帮助。测试结果提供的有用信息量可以用二进制单位（比特）来衡量，测试结果产生的信息的单位价格可以用每比特多少美元来表示，这与黄金价格以每盎司多少美元给出的方式非常相似。这使得可以比较各种诊断测试的单位价格，研究多次测试的效果，并计算筛查测试最具成本效益的条件。
