title: Health management technology for catastrophic medical conditions.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The excessive growth of health care expenditures in the United States is widely acknowledged. Costs are anticipated to double by the year 2006. The intractable issue which remains before health care leaders is how to appropriately restrain these costs while not sacrificing a desired level of care quality. A variety of management approaches have been developed in pursuit of more rational and cost-effective use of health resources. Current management approaches have proven inadequate in stemming health care cost inflation and have raised increasing concerns about their negative impact on the quality of health care.
  
  
  METHODS
  One group has created and operated a data and structured, expert consensus-driven health management technology for the management of catastrophic medical conditions, including severe brain and spinal cord injury and severe multiple trauma and burns, since 1992 and has recently applied this same technology to high risk neonates and organ transplants. This integrated, severity risk adjusted, delivery system incorporates adequate clinical data capture and analysis, coupled with empirically derived management principles and consensus expert clinical judgment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Preliminary data analysis indicates that patients treated under the ParadigmHealth model experienced an improvement in the health care process, improved quality in health care delivery and outcomes, and overall cost reduction.
authors.affiliation: ParadigmHealth Corporation, California, USA.
authors.forename: D N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Cope
authors.forename: E D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Bryant
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sundance
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000628:therapy; D002388:Catastrophic Illness / Q000628:therapy*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D010348:Patient Care Team