Group Health Cooperative and UW School of Medicine sign the nation's first formal affiliation agreement between an HMO and a university medical school on November 23, 1981.

See Additional Media
On November 23, 1981, Group Health Cooperative and University of Washington School of Medicine sign the nation's first formal affiliation agreement between an HMO and a university medical school. The agreement, carefully worked out over a fairly long period of time, provides for courses for UW medical students at Group Health, develops several shared clinic programs, and greatly increases opportunities for Group Health's research program.

The agreement was a main achievement of Gerald "Gerry" Coe, Group Health's acting executive vice president (formally lead attorney). The alliance had been worked out in principle by Dr. Howard Kirz, Group Health's Director of Medical Education since 1977, and Drs. Jack Chase and Jack Lein, respectively dean and director of continuing education at the School of Medicine.

The agreement followed a collaboration between the two institutions begun on several projects in 1968, including the family practice residency program.

Sources: Walt Crowley, To Serve the Greatest Number: A History of Group Health Cooperative of Seattle (Seattle: GHC/University of Washington Press, 1995), 125, 168-169.
Related Topics
Education Group Health Health
Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You