Use of prognostic tools in the hospital, assessment of factors behind their use or lack thereof through a physician-oriented survey.

Physician's use of prognostic tools may help to decide on the intensity of therapies provided and communicate with patients and their caregivers in a timely fashion. However, literature that describes knowledge, perceived limitations and overall use of these tools by doctors is lacking. By way of a physician survey, we attempted to look at the use of prognostic tools in our community of doctors in our department of internal medicine. Our results showed that overall physicians have superficial knowledge of prognostic tools. We also discovered that physicians believe these tools to be helpful, yet their availability is compromised by lack of exposure during formative years, their cumbersome structure and the impracticalities of remembering them at bedside.