Medical intervention models

Third, the scientific and societal maturation of lead as a public health issue has increasingly compelled both the scientist and the physician to view the element in ways qualitatively and quantitatively different from what has traditionally been the case. Lead has long been known to produce severe adverse effects in identifiable poisoned subjects, and those impacts required clinician and physician involvement within the framework of a one-on-one medical intervention model. However, we are increasingly made aware that lead also produces a variety of subtle but important adverse effects on the developing central nervous system and other systems in humans. These are not only irreversible in some cases but can exact significant economic and public health tolls when those effects are metered or scaled on a macro or population basis. 

Stimulus-response specificity is a concept describing conditions where a very specific response can be predicted with tremendous regularity when a stimulus is applied. One example would be that an electrical shock to muscle tissue evokes a contraction. This model is appropriate for some types of medical interventions. For example, for acute cardiac and respiratory arrest, the techniques of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be used with most victims, regardless of their age, socioeconomic status, sex, or religious beliefs. When there is an obstructed airway, performing an emergency tracheotomy is appropriate for victims regardless of their emotional status, personality style, or level of psychosocial maturity. Likewise, some medications have fairly universal effects on all people for instance, sodium pentothal produces unconsciousness (Deckert 1985). 

A more comprehensive conceptual framework, the ECHO model, places outcomes into three categories economic, clinical, and humanistic outcomes. The model covers the five D s within the clinical and humanistic outcomes and provides an added economic outcomes dimension. As described by Kozma and associates, clinical outcomes are the medical events that occur as a result of the condition or its treatment. Economic outcomes are the direct, indirect, and intangible costs compared with the consequences of a medical intervention. Along with patient satisfaction, an essential humanistic or patient-reported outcome is self-assessed function and wellbeing, or health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This chapter focuses on HRQOL as an outcome of pharmacotherapeutic interventions. 

On the basis of mathematical models, new experiments can be suggested and their outcome can be predicted. Especially, the control of networks can be investigated in silico. This enables identification of targets for medical intervention. 

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