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ACCAHC Release: Integrative Health Consortium Celebrates John Weeks' Contributions 2007-2015 |
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Written by John Weeks
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Complementary
and Integrative Health Consortium Celebrates John Weeks' Contributions as He Steps
Down from 8.5 Years as Executive Director
The Academic
Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC) Produces Significant Impact
ACCAHC Media Release, June 2015 (Seattle). The Academic Consortium for
Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC - www.accahc.org) proudly honors the
contributions of integrative health and medicine pioneer John Weeks as he steps
down as executive director on June 30, 2015 after 8.5 years in the position.
ACCAHC's Chronology of Accomplishment during Weeks'
term has included advances in: expanding the role of non-pharmacologic
approaches in integrative pain treatment; opening the movement for
interprofessional care to the integrative health professions; linking
integrative health and values-based medicine (the "Triple Aim"); providing
significant input into the NIH strategic plan for complementary and integrative
health; and stimulating a health and wellness focus at a Institute of Medicine
Global Forum as the most significant innovation needed in the education of
health professionals.
 John Weeks, 2010
One of volunteer the co-founder of the organization in
2004, Weeks was retained for 30 hours/month as its second executive director in
January 2007. ACCAHC has since grown and transformed from a project of the
Integrative Health Policy Consortium (www.ihpc.org)
into an independent, 501c3 organization. Weeks led the development of ACCAHC's unique
business model. ACCAHC combines an interprofessional, collaborative platform of
now 58 member organizations and institutions from the integrative health and
medicine professions with significant investment from philanthropic partners
and extraordinary volunteerism.
Elizabeth A. Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA, ACCAHC's chair and
former long-time leader of the Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental
Medicine, states: "John's work has been extraordinary. He's built bridges with
multiple national organizations, federal agencies and academic institutions. He
is the most prolific and productive person I have ever met. Through his work
we've been able to make some remarkable strides."
In Weeks' term, ACCAHC has:
 A basic IPE tool
Grown to include 14 core organizational members that
are councils of colleges, accrediting agencies, certification and testing
organizations from the licensed integrative health and medicine fields, plus 4
emerging professions organizations.
- A six-fold increase in the organization's annual
revenues.
- Created key interprofessional tools such as
ACCAHC's highly-regarded Clinician's and Educators Desk Reference on the Licensed Complementary
and Integrative Health Professions (2009; Second edition 2013),
and its influential Competencies for
Optimal Practice in Integrative Environments.
- Added 40 individual university and college
members plus a dozen Associate Members organizations.
- Inserted ACCAHC's professions more deeply in the
primary care dialogue through a partnership with UCLA's Michael Goldstein, PhD
that produced the impactful white paper: Meeting the National Primary Care Needs: The Roles of Doctors of
Chiropractic and Naturopathic Medicine, Practitioners of Acupuncture and
Oriental Medicine and Direct-Entry Midwives which Weeks co-authored.
- Developed a group of philanthropic partners whose
generosity has typically quadrupled the organization's revenue base and thus
its ability to advance integrative health and medicine.
- Created the ACCAHC web-portal and organizing
base for transformation called the Center for Optimal Integration: Creating Health (www.optimalintegration.org) which Weeks
has directed.
- Significantly influenced 3 separate Institute of
Medicine initiatives involving the role of integrative medicine (2008-2009),
pain care (2010-2011) and interprofessionalism (2012-present).
- Served as the only U.S. presence, with Weeks the
invited participant, at two Hong Kong workgroups that supported creation of the
WHO 2014-2023 Traditional Medicine Strategy.
 Multiple engagements
Co-sponsored the International Congress on
Education in Complementary and Integrative Medicine with Georgetown University
and the 61 conventional academic health centers in the Academic Consortium for
Integrative Medicine and Health, with Weeks on the organizing committee.
- Secured from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation what
may be the first grants from a blue-chip national foundation to an integrative
health and medicine health professional initiative.
- Served as a partner organization, with Weeks on
the Steering Committee, of the HRSA-funded Integrative Medicine in Preventive
Medicine initiative of the American College of Preventive Medicine.
- Developed the Project for Integrative Health and
the Triple Aim to stimulate engagement of all stakeholders in the powerful
alignment of integrative health and medicine with the movement in regular
medicine toward values-based care.
.jpg) ACCAHC-NCCIH February 28, 2011
ACCAHC board member William Meeker, DC, MPH, the founding
director of the NIH-funded Chiropractic Research Center and current president
of Palmer College of Chiropractic West, recalls when ACCAHC was working to urge
the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health to focus on
whole practice, real world research: "John orchestrated a meeting at NCCIH in
Bethesda with an interdisciplinary group of several of us. As a team we made
quite an effective and detailed case for why NCCIH needed to re-conceptualize
its funding decisions and to understand that the so-called ‘CAM' professions
are true scientific stakeholders of the agency."
Weeks will continue to be involved in one or more ACCAHC
projects while expanding his writing and reporting and also "opening the
windows to what else might be next." He credits "an incredibly dedicated staff
and a remarkable set of ACCAHC volunteers - we draw from college presidents,
deans, national organization CEOs and other proven leaders to multiply many
times over what funded time alone could produce." He adds: "Behind the work has
been a handful of powerful investors without whom very little of what we did could
have been accomplished. Thank you Lucy Gonda, Ruth Westreich, Lynne Rosenthal, and
Sharon Weil! It's been a good run."
 Tribute booklet
In May 2015, ACCAHC joined with two other consortia and
others to honor Weeks' 30 years in the field by presenting him with a Lifetime
Achievement Living Tribute Award at the banquet of International Research
Congress on Integrative Medicine and Health.
__________________________
Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative
Health Care (ACCAHC) ACCAHC is a
501c3 organization the mission is to enhance patient care through fostering
mutual respect and understanding among diverse healthcare professionals and
disciplines. ACCAHC does so through education, convening and advocacy. ACCAHC
is a leadership organization focused on advancing the whole person, team-based,
health-focused values of integrative health and medicine as a means of shifting
our medical industry toward a system focused on health creation. Core
membership consists of the national educational institutions linked to the 5
licensed integrative healthcare professions with a US DoE-recognized
accrediting body: chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture and Oriental
medicine, massage therapy, direct-entry midwifery. Together these fields
represent over 370,000 licensed practitioners. For information on current or
past projects, see Chronicle of Accomplishment [ADD LINK] and www.accahc.org and www.optimalintegration.org.
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