THE OFFICE ON WOMEN'S HEALTH ESTABLISHES A NEW GENERATION OF NATIONAL CENTERS OF EXCELLENCE IN WOMEN'S HEALTH

WASHINGTON—The Office on Women's Health (OWH) within the Department of Health and Human Services announced the establishment of six new National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health—the second generation of model centers that will provide integrated and comprehensive women's health services to women across the country.

The OWH has awarded $1 million for the development of the six Centers, which are located at: Boston University Medical Campus; Indiana University Medical Center; University of California at Los Angeles; University of Maryland at Baltimore; University of Michigan Medical Center; and Wake Forest University/Bowman Gray School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The Centers will serve as national models which can be evaluated and duplicated across the nation to provide the best in women's health care. The Centers, located at academic institutions, serve as "one-stop shopping" models that provide integrated health care services targeted to women's unique needs, multidisciplinary women's health research programs, and public and health care professional education on women's health issues across the lifespan. The Centers will also forge links with health care services in the community.

"The National Centers of Excellence provide models for integrated women's health care nationwide," said Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A., Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women's Health and Assistant Surgeon General. "They reflect the progress that is being made in improving women's health by fostering new research, integrating clinical services and weaving women's health curricula into the training of health care professionals."

The National Centers of Excellence will provide the following:

• An integrated "one-stop shopping" model for the delivery of clinical health care services to women with an emphasis on prevention and early detection.
• A multi-disciplinary research agenda on women's health issues, fostering collaborations across academic departments and promoting strategies to encourage women to participate in clinical research trials.
• Coordination and linkage between clinical services in academic centers and surrounding communities.
• Educational programs and materials for the general public and health care professionals on women's health, using cutting edge information technologies and telemedicine approaches.
• The integration of a women's health focus into medical school curriculum.
• A "Women in Academic Medicine Leadership Plan" to foster the recruitment, retention and promotion of women in academic careers.
• Networking within the community to form alliances with business groups, consumer groups, scientific organizations and public policy leaders.
• An evaluation plan to assess project outcomes and effectiveness.

"This hallmark one-stop shopping model—the National Centers of Excellence in Women's Health—is a critical component in our new national prescription to improve women's health and will provide a template that can be duplicated at other sites nationwide," said Dr. Blumenthal.

The six new Centers of Excellence bring the total number being supported by the OWH to twelve. In October 1996, the OWH established the first six vanguard model Centers, which include: Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, Philadelphia, PA; Magee-Women's Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA; Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio; University of California at San Francisco; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; and Yale University, New Haven, CT.