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demonstration centers with other regional centers being added as the usefulness of the program is recognized and as funds allow. The subcommittee has not made any cost projections for the phased implementation of the total national O-E medical information system proposer' in this report. CONCLUSIONS The objective of this report is to enhance physicians' care of patients with occupational and environmental health problems. The information system proposed should enhance medical care in occupational and environmental medicine. The focus has been on the physician who initially sees a patient, who must be alert to a potential occupational or environmental cause for the patient's complaints or disease, and who must then call on the resources of the complex health care information system for an accurate diagnosis and appropriate therapy. The committee's efforts are dedicated to easing physicians' tasks in this difficult arena. Problems arise because precise incidence and prevalence data for O-E diseases are sparse or not available, and because much of the available data are inadequate or debatable. The proposed system will help alleviate these deficits. This report concludes that illness, injury, and death potentially or actually attributable to hazardous occupational or environmental exposures wit! become more readily recognized, more accurately diagnosed and treated, and thus, accurately reported as a result of having a nationally coordinated network of regional information centers available to and used by physicians. 23
