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In 1970, Group Health Cooperative innovates the telephone Consulting Nurse Service. The person responsible for innovating this service is nurse Mary Matsuda Greunewald. This will prove to be one of Group Health's most popular and cost-effective programs.

By 1976 the nurse consultants were handling some 10,000 calls a month, and resolving about 6,000 of these contacts without a doctor visit. With the cost of the average call being 56 cents and the cost of the average doctor visit being $25, this service yielded dramatic efficiency.

Sources: Walt Crowley, To Serve the Greatest Number: A History of Group Health Cooperative of Seattle (Seattle: GHC/University of Washington Press, 1995), 138, 154.

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