indicated that there was an overlap and duplication of effort in the command, dental, veterinary, administrative and plans and operations functional areas. The study revealed that by combining the two staffs into a medical command, a 15 percent savings in personnel spaces could be generated. No functions presently performed by the Surgeon's Office or by the brigade headquarters would be deleted and the reduction in manpower would not decrease the efficiency of medical operations. The consolidation of these two elements was held in abeyance pending final USARV approval and availability of adequate real estate. Furthermore, a USARV directed action to its major subordinate components to conduct similar studies increased the slippage on the organization of the United States Army Medical Command, Vietnam (Provisional) until 1 March 1970. Medical Regulating The mission of the medical regulating office continued to be the control of patient evacuation within the Republic of Vietnam and the coordination of patient evacuation to hospitals in PACOM and CONUS. Two agencies provided medical statistical data. The Medical Records and Statical Division, USARV Surgeon's Office was the primary agency for medical records and reports while the Medical Regulating Office of the brigade served as the agency which accumulated daily statistics for medical regulating and operational purposes. On 24 August 1969, as a part of USARV's effort to meet new troop ceilings imposed by the Keystone Eagle troop redeployment, the brigade headquarters was requested to reduce the Army patient strength in Vietnam to 2,000 provided the health and wellbeing of the patients were not jeopardized. A policy was established within the brigade to meet this requirement wherever possible, and the patient account was successfully reduced to the desired level and maintained at that level until 6 September 1996. Initial instructions issued by the brigade headquarters included assign­ing Army patient ceiling goals to each medical group, restricting elective surgery for Army patients and establishing a policy permitting the evacuation of patients out of country, if not medically contraindicated, without regard to the thirty-day evacuation policy whenever necessary to maintain the Army patient strength as close to 2,000 as possible during the period identified above. On 6 September 1969, the temporary ceiling of 2,000 total inpatients was lifted and the original DOD ceiling of 3,000 Army patients on census at all facilities was reinstated. A program was initiated in October 1969 within brigade hospitals to provide reconstructive surgery for ARVN patients hospitalized