NASHVILLE (AP) - Patients in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia are going to have access to more physicians with specialized training through an agreement announced Friday between Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Mountain States Health Alliance.

Under the agreement, Vanderbilt will help recruit doctors who are in hard-to-find specialties to upper East Tennessee and who bring expertise in a number of areas, including heart disease, diabetes and asthma. There will be a particular focus on treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Both organizations feels like they have something to learn from the other, and they see themselves as part of a growing infrastructure of health care networks that are gearing up for implementation of the federal health care overhaul.

"We are trying to be very constructive and proactive about how we can provide good quality health care," said C. Wright Pinson, CEO of the Vanderbilt Univers ity Medical Health Care System.

Both organizations are expected to work together on medical research and bring more clinical trials in northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia.

Vanderbilt is a leading research university and medical school. Mountain States Health Alliance is a system of 13 hospitals in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina.