Sigmund Software, LLC

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Effective treatment of behavioral healthcare problems begins with the systematic measurement of behaviors targeted for change. A well-documented and well-defined listing of behaviors slated for modification can help streamline and focus treatment, and thus lead to significantly enhanced quality of care.

Additionally, such a uniform listing would provide a common language that can lead to better communication among behavioral healthcare providers, managers, consumers, and payers.

Sigmund is an outcomes assessment
and management system that combines definitional precision
with high sensitivity to behavior change

Sigmund Software, a company with software products on the cutting edge of behavioral informatics, including SIGMUND™ Behavioral Health Information System, has developed Target Behavior Tracking™ (TBT™) to identify, define, and measure the problem behavior of patients who seek behavioral healthcare treatment. TBT™ is the primary progress measurement component of the SIGMUND™ informatics software system.

Considerations regarding treatment cost are continually balanced against considerations regarding treatment efficacy. The need for an evaluative tool with high sensitivity to treatment effects has never been greater.

Sigmund Software has addressed this critical need for a practical, clinically sensitive measure of behavioral symptoms and strengths with the development of Target Behavior Tracking. In the era of managed care, outcomes assessment / management is a fact of professional life.

Sigmund Software has developed TBT to identify,
define and measure the problem behavior
of patients who seek behavioral healthcare treatment

Target Behavior Tracking is the second-generation methodology for meeting the managed care needs of clinicians. In the managed care environment, TBT™ can help provide for more educated evaluations of treatment efficacy than have ever before been possible. TBT™ is a clinician's tool, designed by clinicians to help clinicians provide more effective treatment.

Crying. Social withdrawal. Paranoid delusions. These are a sampling of the types of behaviors that clients in treatment exhibit, and that providers rendering treatment may seek to modify. How does one precisely define and measure such behaviors? How does one calculate the impact, if any, treatment has had on such behaviors?

TBT™ provides the answer to both of these questions. Different from previous systematic attempts to describe and quantify client behavior, the TBT™ method does not require dedicated observers.

Unlike more traditional tests and related psychometric tools, the TBT™ method is sensitive to even small treatment effects.

Users of SIGMUND™'s TBT™ also receive, in real time, ongoing feedback regarding the effectiveness of their intervention efforts. In order to assess the efficacy of treatment, SIGMUND™'s TBT™ software platform, also allows the user to record the treatment interventions and activities administered to the client.

Medications, psychotherapy, group therapy, time outs, physical restraint, seclusion, biofeedback and so forth can all be recorded. SIGMUND™ then analyzes the interactions between target behaviors and treatment interventions and activities over defined time periods and graphically portrays these relationships. The result is a state-of-the-art real time assessment of clinical outcomes. The graph below illustrates the power of TBT™.

The graph presents a visual analysis of the relationship between a treatment intervention (in this case medications) and the total number of target behaviors displayed by this client on a week-by-week basis.

TBT is a clinicians tool designed by clinicians
to help clinicians provide more effective treatment

The relationship between the dosages of Clozaril and Thorazine and the total target behavior frequency is readily apparent. Sigmund™ is an outcomes assessment and management system that combines definitional precision with high sensitivity to behavior change. For more information, please contact Sigmund Software at 1-800-448-7678.

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Summary of the TBT™ Process