Impact of Ambulatory-Health-Care Services on the Demand for Hospital Beds

Abstract

ONE of the more dramatic developments in the health-care field during the past five years has been the widespread diffusion of neighborhood health centers around the nation, under varying auspices, and funded by the Federal Office of Economic Opportunity as part of the war on poverty. Although the concept of the neighborhood health center as a system for delivering ambulatory health care is applicable to any community, it was conceived as a particularly effective way of overcoming the barriers to optimum health among the poor.The Columbia Point Neighborhood Health Center in Boston, sponsored by Tufts University School of Medicine, . . .