Evaluating rehabilitation outcome by cost function indicators.

Abstract This paper examines the cost effectiveness relationship between services provided and patient function gained during hospitalization in comprehensive medical rehabilitation centers. The paper develops a multi-dimensional outcome indicator which is applicable over time to patients who have received rehabilitation services. This indicator is a composite measure of functional gain per dollar cost of services and does not assume that an individual is or will be income productive. The indicator is applied to a national sample of 230 severely disabled spinal cord and focal cerebral patients treated at 10 leading comprehensive rehabilitation centers located across the continental United States. Analysis of the sample indicates that treatment and management, not demographic, variables influenced rehabilitation success; comprehensive medical rehabilitation centers have very different levels of cost effectiveness; cost effectiveness differed by homogeneous disability groups treated; and the indicator developed in this paper has wider applicability and utility than other traditional measures of rehabilitation outcome.

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