ABSTRACT
One of the particular challenges of evaluating effectiveness in a public sector managed care (PSMC) environment is that there are multiple stakeholders (taxpayers, legislators, consumers, providers, public mental health authorities), each with its own perspective. Any measure of effectiveness therefore demands a consensus from all stakeholders in order to be fully validated. Thus, although each stakeholder maintains a unique perspective on cost (to that
stakeholder), they all must somehow agree on what outcomes are most important and on how to measure them.
