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Regional Medical Programs

Opening Statement

The Regional Medical Programs Service, in combination with Compre-
hensive Health Planning and the National Center for Health Services,
Research and Development, supports activities calculated to enhance the
capacity of the health care system to furnish services of satisfactory
quality to all Americans. These activities are conducted by Regional
Medical Programs which ha.e been organized as functional consortiums
of health care providers, each with special and specific resources which
can be made res~onsive to health ieeds. Such efforts are designed to
improve manpower development and utilization, to demonstrate new

schniques and innovative delivery patterns, tc promote the more efficient
linking together of scarce resources, and to develop and implement
quality of care guidelines and perf-rmance review mechanisms.
Role of Regional Medical Programs

Regional Medical Programs has broadened its original concept of
purveying scientific knowledge in categorical areas to an activity that
develops and promotes opportunitics for the providers of care in tue
private sector to expand and improve the delivery of quality health care.
Thus reshaped, it can accomodate changing concepts and carry out
significant new federal initiatives.

Relationship to Federal Initiatives
The ability of Regional Medical Programs to coordinate resources and

work successfully with other programs is being relied on to introduce
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such efforts as Area Health Education Centers which will help alleviate

the health manpower needs of communities. Similarly, Regional Medical
Programs are participating in Emergency Medical Service activities where,

by combining transportation, communication, and medical services into

rapid response systems, we can save lives and reduce the likelihood of
disability.

In the kidney disease area, we are stepping up our activities to
develop national dialysis and transplant networks of resources throughout
the country to assure maximum possible access to those in need of such
services.

Need to Solve Lucal Problems

While the direction of resources toward new national objectives is
‘ yortant, we must not lose sight of the major disease elements with
which the program is conce ned. White we continue to direct attention
to the major killing and crippling uiseases, (heart, cancer, stroke and
kidney), in doing so we strengthen the health care delivery system as
attention is focused on such areas as hypertension and rheumatic fever.

What we have is a strong local-Federal alliance, some Federal funding
on the one hand and local planning and decisionmaking on the other. The
communi y and its Comprehensive Health Planniug agency define the needs;
and the Regional Advisory Group, with the assistance of the Regional Medical
Program and its Federal counterpart, designs the implementation and operation

of progrems which will meet those needs.
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With the 1970 program amendments placing emphasis on primary service,
quality of care and manpower utilization and development, through local
effort and in concert with the efforts of the other Developmental programs
in Health Services and Mental Health Administration, we believe that the
Regional Medical Programs have the potential to meet even the most

optimistic of expectations.