DON DETMER TO BE NAMED SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
AT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA


	CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, Oct. 20 -- Dr. Don E. Detmer, vice
president and provost for health sciences at the University of
Virginia, will assume the title senior vice president when he
returns from a year's leave in January, U.Va. President John T.
Casteen III announced today.
	Dr. Robert W. Cantrell, who has been interim vice president
and provost since January 1995, will continue to serve until a
permanent vice president and provost is named.
	In Dr. Detmer's new role as senior vice president and as an
interdisciplinary University Professor, he will continue to report
to Casteen and will serve as a member of his cabinet.  A vascular
surgeon, Dr. Detmer also will hold joint appointments in the School
of Medicine departments of surgery and health sciences policy.
	Casteen said one of Dr. Detmer's major responsibilities will
be to represent the University on health policy issues at the
national level.  Much of that work will be accomplished through the
Virginia Health Policy Center, which he was instrumental in founding
and has co-directed since 1991. 
	"Since Don came to the University nearly eight years ago,
his breadth of vision and creative leadership have been essential to
shaping the future of health care systems in this country," Casteen
said.  "We are grateful that we will continue to benefit from his
leadership in making our Health Sciences Center a national force in
new information technologies, including those that support health
informatics, and from his many other accomplishments locally and
nationally.
	"Don is a key figure in determining national health policy
through his work for the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of
Medicine and the Association of Academic Health Centers.  His
innovative ways to encourage medical and nursing graduates to work
in underserved areas benefit people across the state and will
continue to do so.  Don Detmer's contributions are invaluable well
beyond the University."
	Much of Dr. Detmer's leave has been spent at the High
Performance Computing Center in Washington, where he has analyzed
ways to incorporate the latest technology into health education and
the delivery of health care. In June he was awarded a $200,000 grant
from Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology to support future
work in this area.
	"My hope is to establish in Charlottesville, with this seed
money and other support, a new institute that will make the
University of Virginia the center of groundbreaking work in health
telematics--a new term encompassing informatics and
telecommunications," Dr. Detmer said. "Effective use of new
technology will be critical to the success of the regional health
care networks now being developed throughout the country.
	"My new assignment also includes the opportunity to help
assure sound national policy in an era of genuine threats to
academic health centers coming from managed care and shifts in the
federal funding of patient care and research.  I eagerly anticipate
continuing my service as part of the University's senior management
team."	
	U.Va. Rector Hovey S. Dabney, who has worked closely with
Dr. Detmer as a board member of the Health Services Foundation and a
member of the Board of Visitors health affairs committee, credited
him for his support of the University's centers of clinical and
research excellence.  "In the years since Dr. Detmer presided over a
remarkably smooth transition into 'the new hospital,' he has
continued to develop new services for the broader community such as
satellite clinics, support programs for the rural elderly, and
cooperative links with other hospitals in the region," he said.
	During Dr. Detmer's tenure as vice president and provost,
private contributions to the Health Sciences Center increased by 100
percent, growing from $8.4 to $17 million per year.  Outside
research support, which totalled $74 million last year, and
applications to the medical and nursing schools also doubled over
those years.
	"Dr. Detmer has been very effective in generating support
for the Health Sciences Center because of his ability to explain its
evolving and growing needs.  He has been particularly successful in
helping prospective donors understand how they could be involved in
realizing its multiple missions," said Paul G. Rogers, a Washington,
DC, lawyer and former U.S. Congressman from Florida who worked with
Dr. Detmer as chair of U.Va.'s Health Sciences Council.
###
October 20, 1995