Ways in which medical successes have come about are reviewed, including who and what were responsible for the clinical advances, what sped or held them back, and lessons that decrease the likelihood of failure. Consideration is given to clinical application, the use of task forces and commissions, and scientific literature. (LBH)

Describes the Yale Health Plan, prepaid medical care for students, employees and faculty. (PG)

Drawing from the experience of Michigan State University, the authors project those issues that a medical center will need to consider in contemplating the role they might play in developing hospital maintenance organizations (HMOs). (Author)

Describes the operational program of the Community Health Center Plan affiliated with the Yale-New Haven Medical Center. (PG)

The academic medical center has but two options if it desires some formal relationship with a health maintenance organization (HMO); it may directly sponsor and own an HMO, or it may affiliate with such a program owned or operated by someone else. (Author)

It is necessary to convey to the general public that part of health maintenance rests with the individual, and part with the health care delivery system. (Author/PG)

Medical centers must actively participate in formulating health care legislation in the broad public interest as well as their own. (Author)

How best can a hospital maintenance organization (HMO) fit with, supplement, modify, and/or protect the university medical center's perceived role?

Hospital maintenance organizations (HMOs) will serve as useful settings for teaching ambulatory care. (Author/PG)

Expenditures for personal health care--70 percent of which are influenced by physicians--are continuing to rise at an annual compound rate of almost four percent, due largely to increased utilization. Components of the increased services, possible benefits, reasons for the increase, and approaches that can change present utilization patterns are…

House staff members often seek positions at municipal hospitals, where they have responsibility for patients, in contrast to private medical services of voluntary hospitals, where their role is less well defined. With planning it should be possible to create at such institutions constructive interaction where house staff attend to patient care…

At present the typical American medical school does not offer future physicians the skills needed to prescribe specific exercise regimens for their individual patients. (Author/KE)

Recent changes in the conceptualization of informed consent in medical encounters are reviewed to help provide a better understanding of the concept itself and of some difficulties in philosophical justifications for the requirement of informed consent. (Author/MLW)