background resources in PDF |
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some CAM/IM publication links |
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Issues #84-#85 - Jan-Feb 2011 |
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Written by John Weeks
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Issues #84 & #85 - January-February 2011
Issue
#85 - March 8, 2011March 8, 2011
\Nutrition Business Journal
estimates size of integrative practitioner market by discipline ...
Patients of general practitioners who use CAM cost less and live longer
than those of conventional doctors in Netherlands study ... Clinicians
note: NCCAM's 3rd strategic plan begins to honor "real world" mandate
... CAHCIM changes name of 2012 research conference ...
Palmer-Rand-Samueli group receives $7.4 million for study of
chiropractic in the military readiness ... Sebelius in strong
endorsement of chiropractors ... New York Times articles describes how Colorado medical society and mail-order NDs combine to oppose naturopathic licensing ... Hospitals and Health Networks
column proposes value of integrative health care in Accountable Care
Organizations (ACOs) ... ESPN viewers give thumbs up to yoga for
professional sports teams ... Consortium of Academic Health Centers for
Integrative Medicine sets up integrative mental health group ... Medical
dean and past dean at U Minnesota offer articulate defense of
integrative medicine program at the Center for Spirituality and Healing
... Samueli Institute launches nurse training at VA medical centers ...
Urban Zen continues promoting new "integrative practitioner" training
... Seattle's Swedish Hospital educates to foster MD-ND relationships in
chronic disease management ... Data on total number of Board Certified
Holistic Nurses ... Bravewell to host 5th leadership award dinner in
November 2011 ... AAAOM takes steps to right its course ... MD and DO
groups push back against IOM-Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report
promoting independent practice by nurses ... Homeopathic accreditation
agency changes name to Accreditation Commission for Homeopathic Education in North America
... Herbal organization appoints integrative media leader Frank Lampe
to communications post ... Data on growth of the National Acupuncture
Detoxification Association ... More
February 16, 2011
Strategic Objective #3 of the 2011-2015 plan from the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reads: "Increase
understanding of 'real world' patterns and outcomes of CAM use and its
integration into health care and health promotion." Outcomes,
integration and especially a health-focus are directions that many
clinicians wish the agency had taken from the start. This new plan,
which declares the critical importance of clinician input, is worth both
a review, and a renewed commitment to closer participation in NCCAM's
work. Note the fascinating decision, since the draft was issued in
August, to increase from 1 to 36 the number of times the word
"disciplines" is included as a unit of participation or inquiry. This is
a huge addition to the products and modalities focus in NCCAM's first
years. More
February 10, 2011
Integrative
centers boast a good deal of promise. Benefits based on published
outcomes are harder to find. Maine's True North integrative center
offers a rare examination and sharing of outcomes with this
retrospective examination of 80 of the center's patients who had been
diagnosed with depression. Most saw only a functional medicine
practitioner (MD or ARNP), some saw only a "CAM" practitioner while
others saw a combination, with an average 1.8 practitioner types per
patient. The center's executive director Tom Dahlborg shared patient
self-report outcomes and ACP satisfaction outcomes plus cost and visit
data with the Integrator. He then responded with additional
details to follow up queries. All are reported here. Take a look. There
are some surprises. This sharing continues True North's long-standing
pattern of leadership in advancing the integrative center mode. More
February 9, 2011
The publication by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation of "Workplace Clinics, A Sign of Growing
Employer Interest in Wellness" provided Integrator contributor
Taylor Walsh with an opportunity to check in on where this employer
movement is crossing over into integrative practices, and to suggest
places where the integrative practice movement might connect. Walsh, a
Washington, DC-based consultant, entrepreneur and writer, points to a
number of potential seams of gold. Anyone capitalized to go mining? More
Issue
#84 - February 2, 201
February 2, 2011
The Institute for Functional Medicine begins state of Florida-backed $1.2-million pilot with Tallahassee residency program ... Holistic Primary Care survey
finds holistic and conventional practices converging ... Graduates of
University of Arizona IM Fellowship struggling to establish IM
practices, survey finds ... Integrative practice organizations urge
additional integrative health expertise before finalizing National
Prevention (and Health Promotion) Strategy ... Obama appoints
acupuncturist-nurse Charlotte Rose Kerr to "integrative practitioner"
slot for National Prevention Council Advisory Group ... No integrative
health researchers named to PCORI Methodology Committee, despite
Congressional intent ... Former Duke IM leader Tracy Gaudet, MD
appointed to head up new national VA office ... Integrated Healthcare
Policy Consortium offers policy-makers a statement relative to
integrative practitioners in workforce planning ...
InteractionsGuide.com
developer Mitch Stargrove, ND, LAc
named to leadership group for HRSA pharmacy initiative ... Council of
Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine publishes strategic
priorities ... "Integration" used as a draw for prospective students at
New York Chiropractic College ... Boucher Institute of Naturopathic
Medicine seeks new president ... Philanthropic organizations invited by
team Samueli-Kellogg-Ripple team to explore an integrative medicine
interest group at upcoming Grantmakers in Health conference ... National
College of Natural Medicine receives $1.35 million from from owners of
Bob's Red Mill organic foods ... Integrated Chiropractic Outcomes
Network created to capture real world outcomes, including health and
wellness ... New Yorker article by Atul Gawande highlights role
of health coaches ... Swiss government reverses, will test 5 key "CAM"
practices' NCCAM may be arbiter ... James Wheedon, DC examines possible
data biasing in Medicare chiropractic demonstration project ... Peter
D'Adamo to offer May 2011 Generative Medicine seminar ... Minnesota Medicine runs Bill Manahan, MD's health reform suggestions, originally published in early 2009 in the Integrator ... More
January 30, 2011
Duke Primary Care physician Richard Schneider, MD, a recent graduate of the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, found
difficulties in developing an integrative medicine practice after he
completed his program. He wondered if other graduates did. Schneider
surveyed 27 of them. Just 23% were in integrative practices. His overall conclusion: "The results are quite encouraging, but not without caveats to
the development of an IM practice." Here are Schneider's findings, plus a look at perceived barriers and areas for work to facilitate change. More
January 28, 2011
In
the short, holiday-filled time frame for responding to the National
Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council's draft National
Prevention (and Health Promotion) Strategy, some in the integrative
practice community did. All but one of the following was then sent to the Integrator. I gathered the other from the web. Included is a note from the Society for Integrative Oncology followed by submissions from the Samueli Institute, Integrated Healthcare Policy
Consortium, American Chiropractic Association, American Association
of Naturopathic Physicians, Nationla Center for Homeopathy, consumer leader Charles
Maclean, PhD, acupuncturist Karah Pino, LAc, MAcOM, and yours truly. I conclude with a brief list of common themes, and two references to the scholarly work of Theodor Geisel. More
January 28, 2011
A new National Health Promotion, Public Health and
Prevention Council with
great potential broke its Congressional mandate in its first,
critically important 6 months. The Council of federal agency directors
was to develop a national strategy on health promotion, public health
and prevention with required input from an
Advisory Group of community experts. This Group was to include
"integrative
health practitioners," "health coaches", work site wellness experts and
others. Public comment on the strategic plan was closed in January 2011 without the Council even naming the Advisory Group, much less getting its formal advice. Can
we expect this Council to fundamentally shift the paradigm toward
health and wellness, as the Council promises, when community experts
are, as the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) states "relegated to simply helping to implement
something they were not able to frame"? More
January 17, 2011
An integrative medicine
colleague challenged me on the evidence-base for arguing that
integrative practices deserve to be highlighted in the National
Prevention (and Health Promotion) Strategy. Here are some morsels from
2010 from Dan Cherkin-Karen Sherman, Dean Ornish and Dugald
Seely-Patricia Herman and Alan Gaby. The Surgeon General and her Council
would serve us all in examining these. If NIH NCCAM fully wakes to the
potential societal benefit from focusing research dollars on these
health-enhancing practices, we may yet have a chance to "shift the nation," as the draft Strategy declares in its first sentence, "from a focus on sickness and disease to one based on wellness and prevention." More
January 17, 2011
Federal policy makers like US Senators Bernie Sanders, Tom
Harkin and Barbara Mikulski who champion integrative medicine and
complementary and alternative medicine inserted the phrases "integrative
health practitioners" and "integrative health care" in various places
in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, including workforce planning. But what
exactly did they mean with these terms? The law is not clear. The Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC), the
multidisciplinary lobbying group, set up a task force to create a
definition in September 2010. On January 13, 2011, IHPC issued a press
release entitled "Policy Statement on the National Healthcare Workforce
in an Era of Integration." In it, they offer a definition. IHPC's policy
statement and the definition are printed here in full. I add commentary.
Do you agree with this approach? More
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