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background resources in PDF |
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some CAM/IM publication links |
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Issues #67 & #68 - Sept-Oct 2009 |
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Written by John Weeks
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Issues #67 & #68 - Sept-Oct 2009
Issue #68 October 8, 2009
October 6, 2009
Andrew Weil,
MD offers 7 point action plan on health reform, community responds ...
IOM report on Summit due out in November ... 47 members of Congress
send letter backing non-discrimination among provider categories ... Academic Medicine
article blasts R-25 integrative medicine programs in medical schools, U
Minnesota responds ... Shifting landscape for massage educational
organizations ... Group to issue educational standards for Yoga
therapists ... NCCAM distributes portion of its Obama stimulus funds
... Beth Clay on controversy over trial of Gonzalez' integrative
pancreatic cancer treatment ... FCER, the former spearhead for
chiropractic research, ends 60 years of visionary action ... Women
legislators back anti-discrimination approach toward licensed
acupuncturists ... Blue Cross Blue Shield federal employees program
continues to list chiropractic doctors as physicians ... Holistic
nursing certification agency marks upbeat in interest ... Employer's
story shows how prejudice may restrict appropriate use of workplace
massage as cost-saver ... Review paper of cost-related studies of
acupuncture ... Economist Herman clarifies how she selected studies
used in her reported presentation on areas for cost-savings from CAM
... Philanthropist members in Bravewell Collaborative show some change since 2007 ...
Ricki and Gunn big winners with $250,000 Dr. Rogers' Prize in
complementary medicine ... Taylor Walsh shares integrative medicine
tweeters ... Unique Hawaii Consortium for Integrative Health Care
selects Wong as exec ... Dana Ullman, MPH now blogging at influential HuffPo
... Pathways to Wellness expanding, seeks new executive director ...
John Scaringe, DC chosen as president of Southern California University
of Health Sciences ... Tim Birdsall, ND, FABNO honored as AANP
Physician of the Year. More
October 2, 2009
Credit Integrator reader
Tayor Walsh for diving into files on the Obama economic
stimulus/American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) site to create
this list of the 52 ARRA grants awarded by the NIH National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine in 2009. The first year grants
totaled roughly $18-million of $32-million NCCAM will be disbursing.
(The NCCAM total will ultimately be 0.39% of the $8.2-billion of ARRA
funds to the NIH.) Included in this report are subjects, investigators,
institutions, amounts and kind of award, plus some Integrator analysis of the types of grants awarded. Thanks Taylor. More
September 29, 2009
The call for
responses to Andrew Weil's recommendations for true healthcare reform
brought the most response from the naturopathic medical community, plus
a mix of others. Author and AANP president Lise Alschuler, ND, FABNO
commends Weil for his "revolutionary" recommendations, and underscores
the importance of gathering outcomes data. Integrative health leader
Pamela Snider, ND urges Weil to go further and points some useful
directions, including interesting references suggesting cost savings.
Holistic medicine leader Bill Manahan, MD suggests changes in
consciousness as central to the 8 "transitions" he recommends. Thaddeus
Jacobs, ND, LAc and Pamela Frank, BSc, ND urge more inclusion. Health coach educator Linda Bark, PhD, RN likes Weil's ideas, but wonders how they will take off if we don't work together. True
North executive director Tom Dahlborg explores what might happen if we
viewed healthcare not as a right but as an obligation, Finally, reader
Mary Klifman wonders if we will get anywhere with any of Weil's
recommendations without "corruption reform." More
September 29, 2009
[From my September IntegrativePractitioner.com column.] On September 10, 2009, the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
(NCCAM) convened members of its leading advisers to begin
developing its next 5-year strategic plan. This plan will be issued
in late 2010, the first under Josephine Briggs, MD, NCCAM’s director. The
integrative practice community has significant time to influence the outcome. In this column, Janet Kahn, PhD, a former NCCAM adviser, current executive director of the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium
and participant in the kick-off session points out exceptional reasons
we should be involved: namely, NCCAM is the only federal agency charged
with "looking at how to move appropriate CAM usage into mainstream
healthcare in the United States." Take a look, and consider how you, your profession or institution, might weigh in to influence NCCAM's direction. More
September 27, 2009
In a recent column in the New York Times, author Michael Pollan pits big food vs. big insurance, arguing that the elephant in the room in healthcare reform is obesity, and that the solution comes to slimming down. Integrator
columnist Michael Levin finds in Pollan's perspective evidence that key
characteristics of current insurance reform efforts create financial
incentives that support investment in integrative practices. One
wonders, with Pollan, whether "Washington can summon the political will
to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food
industry." Yet Levin's argument is clear that we may be seeing changes that could stimulate investment in therapeutic approaches which support habit change. Will these changes incentivize insurers to finally invest
significantly in health creation? More
September 24, 2009
When the
American Medical Association (AMA) announced in 2006 that it was going
to challenge scope of practice expansions of virtually all other
professions, an amalgam of 35 organizations called the Coalition for
Patient Rights (CPR) quickly sprung up to defend against what the AMA
called its Scope of Practice Partnership. Four of the aligned
organizations were from integrative practice fields. Among the 4
trained spokespersons for the CPR, and slated to become co-chair later
this month, is Karen Howard, the executive director of CPR member
American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. The Integrator caught up with Howard recently to learn more about the AMA campaign, and CPR's responses. Here is a brief interview. More
September 20, 2009
Author and
integrative medicine spokesperson Andrew Weil, MD is one of the
nation's most recognized medical doctors. His is certainly the face of
integrative medicine. This month, Weil put that face and influence
directly in service to a "call to action" on the nation's healthcare. Weil's 7 recommendations quickly reached the 300,000-400,000 unique visitors to his own site plus readers of the Huffington Post and other national media. His voice arrived as the voice of integrative medicine.
Are these recommendations your top seven for the field? What would you
add, delete or shift in importance? Is this your top 7 agenda for
shifting US healthcare? More
Issue #67 September 3, 2009
September 3, 2009
Top NCCAM-funded
researcher Berman founds Institute for Integrative Health ... Walsh's
examination of inclusion (or not) of CAM/integrative practitioners in
US House healthcare reform bill ... Economist/researcher Herman reports
9 therapies/21 conditions where use of CAM is shown to be cost saving
... Response to Integrator from NCCAM director Briggs shares
reasons for 10th anniversary symposium theme, coming priorities ...
Janet Polli selected as first executive director of the Consortium of
Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine ... Key AOM researcher
Hammerschlag retires ... Guiltinan selected to chair naturopathic
medicine at Bastyr University ... Center for Integrative Medicine in
the Public Health forges relationships with network of 13 clinics to
provide integrative services to the underserved ... Chiropractic
professionals forge links between the American Public Health Association
and US Bone and Joint Decade ... Inner Harmony Wellness Center selected
University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine fellow Phaythoune
Chothmounethinh, MD as medical director ... AMA's
Scope of Practice Partnership targets 30 ND, DC, LAc and certified
professional midwife scope expansion legislative initiatives in 2009
... Naturopathic physicians report legislative gains in HI, OR, WA, CT,
NH, VT and elsewhere ... MD starting salaries: Are they part of the
problem in the health of the nation? ... Chiropractic organization
raises $1-million for autumn ad campaign to promote the role of DCs in
health reform ... Huffington Post selects Dean Ornish, MD as its
medical editor ... Author and integrative medicine policy enthusiast
Dana Ullman, MPH shares letter exchange with Washington Post writer
regarding coverage of anti-NCCAM story ... More
September 3, 2009
The
American Medical Association has been working in opposition to over 30
state legislative actions of naturopathic physicians, chiropractors,
acupuncture and Oriental medicine practitioners and Certified
Professional Midwives in 2009. The list of these actions, published
here, is part of a broader list of 154 against all non-MD profession
which the AMA as part of that guild's Scope of Practice Partnership
campaign (AMA SOPP). The campaign, begun in 2006, is presented by the
AMA as a public safety concern, though little evidence has materialized
suggesting that this is other than an effort to keep other professions
from entering the MDs turf. Here is the complete list of 30, and a link
to the broader list of 154. More
September 3, 2009
[From my Integrative Practitioner column] The "CAM" appellation, a drag net to scoop up everything off medicine’s floor that is not conventionally accepted,
has never had many champions. Those at the recent IOM Summit and
related hearings in front of Congress favored "integrative medicine" or
"integrative health." In fact, US Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has
suggested that we take the CAM out of NCCAM and rename the NIH center.
Now a Delphi Method survey that is underway out of a Marja Verhoef's
respected research shop at the University of Calgary is wondering
whether it's time to give up the term. Yet there is resistance in many
savvy "CAM" leaders. Top-line chiropractic researcher and Palmer
College West president Bill Meeker, DC suggests wisely that when it is time, we need an "exit strategy." Here are my own musings, borne of participating in the Delphi survey. More
August 28, 2009
If there is one
must-read document on health reform to come out of the broader
integrative practice community this year I would repeat, as I said in
my earlier review, that it is 21st Century Medicine from the
Institute for Functional Medicine. Sit down for an evening and let
yourself learn. These additional perspectives, from NIH fellow and
Dartmouth health services researcher James Whedon, DC and from Kara
Fitzgerald, ND of Metametrix Institute offer useful insights from two
disciplines that were not directly treated in the text. Co-authors
David Jones, MD and Laurie Hoffmann, MPH share more on functional
medicine's relationships with these other disciplines as well as
efforts to penetrate medical schools. Larry Dossey, MD, also offers a
supportive perspective. More
August 28, 2009
When I
learned that NIH NCCAM's 10th anniversary celebration in December 2009
was to focus on natural products and mind-body medicine, I was honestly
deflated. Why not focus on the exciting directions toward real world
outcomes and effectiveness research which NCCAM director Josephine
Briggs, MD has articulated? Given the Obama administration's focus on
comparative effectiveness research, this seemed a missed opportunity.
Even to focus on pain conditions, another of Briggs' spoken priorities,
would seem to be a more proactive direction if one's interest is in
showing the value of NCCAM to the public and members of Congress. I
contacted NCCAM with a series of questions. Here is Briggs'
informative, thoughtful and useful response. More
August 27, 2009
A
systematic review of over 6600 articles found 256 with CAM economic
evaluations. Forty-eight were deemed "high quality," with comparisons
available. These yielded 9 areas where complementary and alternative
medicine for specific conditions have generated evidence of not merely
cost-effectiveness but of cost-savings. So reports the professional who
is emerging as the leading North American voice on CAM costs,
economist-practitioner-researcher Patricia Herman, ND, MS, PhD. Herman
co-authored the paper on the economics of integrative medicine for the
recent Institute of Medicine Summit on Integrative Medicine and the
Health of the Public. She reported findings from her 75% complete
systematic review of over 8,000 references at the August 2009
convention of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. Here
are Herman's top 9. More
August 21, 2009
This Integrator article honors acupuncture
and Oriental medicine researcher Richard Hammerschlag, PhD, who retires
this month from a decade of productive leadership. Those commenting
include Elizabeth Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA, Brian Berman, MD, Anne
Nedrow, MD, Rosa Schnyer, LAc, DAOM, Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, and Dan
Cherkin, PhD. Hammerschlag has not only been the lead researcher from a
CAM institution in the AOM field. He was also played important roles in
the founding of SAR, OCIM, ACCAHC. Hammerschlag's own comments and
those of Berman speak to Hammerschlag's upcoming role as a scholar at
the Institute for Integrative Health which Berman founded. More
August 14, 2009
In May 2008, the Integrator began publishing a "newsletter-inside-the-newsletter" to subscribers and
others as a mean of providing a quick scan of action related to
integrative practice. Three significant organizations in the field now
routinely send these out to their members, recognizing their value -
and reaching over 150,000! Assembling them all here will give anyone a
decent overview of what's what since we began publishing these in May
2008. Here's hoping these prove useful to you! It's fascinating to take
a quick scan, particularly recalling that when I began writing a
newsletter on the "CAM" field in 1997, the publisher asked me if there
was enough going on to fill 8 pages each month. Please join me in
thanking Integrator sponsors NCMIC Group, Alternative
Medicine Integration Group, Inner Harmony Group, Institute
for Health and Productivity Management and Integrative
Practitioner/Integrative Healthcare Symposium for making this service
possible. -- John Weeks, Publisher-Editor. More
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