Central to
this more efficient care deliver model is a proprietary system built by Verist
Medical, LLC. that integrates innovative, well-validated diagnostics,
electronic medical records, e-prescribing, tangible outcome quality indices,
and secure Internet communications. Businessmen with proven experience in
process design built Verist’s system in the spirit of free enterprise. They
were assisted by leading ADHD researchers and hundreds of private practitioners
in Europe and across the United States who daily care for millions of children
and adults who suffer from attentional impairments. Directly or indirectly this
project has led to at least 5 published research articles in the most selective
and prestigious peer-reviewed journals in neuroscience.

Ironically,
by coincidence not design, the Verist system mirrors precisely many of the
proposals forwarded by the highly-respected Committee on Quality of Health Care
in America at the Institute of Medicine, an institution established by The
National Academies which was chartered by the United States Congress to advise
the US Federal Government on matters of science. There is one very critical
difference, though. The IOM and many others appear to believe that the key to
creating an improved health system is to first change physician behaviors. From
the perspective of experienced quality control experts, improvements in cost
and quality derive first and foremost from eliminating waste, not targeting
behaviors. If this appears to be a subtle difference, be assured it is not as
shown in the phenomenon of ADHD stimulant non-response.

There is a
great deal of waste involved in giving patients stimulant medications they do
not need. The phenomenon of silent stimulant non-response does not derive from
physicians behaving badly. It derives from managed care policies that inhibit a
case-by-case free-flow of expert knowledge between primary care and sleep
specialists. In contrast the Verist Medical system :

1.
Joins primary
care and sleep specialists in a cooperative, streamlined care process resulting
in measurable increases in outcome quality

2.
Engages
corporate employers directly and provides them with accurate, real-time cost
and quality data which thus,

3.
Eliminates the
managed care middleman creating an immediate 20% savings for the corporate
employer.

4.
Eliminates the
waste involved in continuing to treat patients with medications to which they
are no longer responding (estimated at 30% of total drug cost; wasted physician
time and negative effect on patient lives not included).

Read on
next month for the continuation of this interesting topic.

Thank
you for your time in reading this column. There are several parts to this
column so read on in the next issues for further information on this topic. The
author is quite serious about eliminating managed care by competitive
application of traditional, proven process management techniques and measurable
aspects of cost and quality under the active, professional guidance of
physician leaders. Please send comments to: [email protected].