Integrator Blog News & Reports

Integration, by nature, asks us to open our peripheral visions. We are served to look at the whole of the field. We need to develop new fascia, new connectivity. Opportunities crop up in new places. The Integrator Blog News and Reports is meant to provide you with information, insights and tools to enhance integrated care in the environment you serve.

- John Weeks, publisher-editor

Gerald Celente, a trends maven familiar to Oprah listeners, major corporations and numerous national media, is bullish on natural health care. Among his top trends for 2008 of any kind - touching on finances and politics and diverse themes - is one he chose to call "Health Yourself Health Care." For a boost that suggests you are on the right track, take a look at Celeste's column which references healing-oriented medical doctors,chiropractors, naturopathic medicine, vitamins, herbs, yoga and more.
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Holistic Medical Association's "Transition" Leads to Linking up with AANP's 2008 Naturopathic Convention

The board of the American Holistic Medical Association (AHMA) has chosen to link up with American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) for their 2008 convention. The 30th anniversary of the AHMA will affirm the potential value of alliance between the two physician-level organizations. The AHMA move is also a sign of AHMA's efforts, under the leadership of Hal Blatman, MD, to modernize and "transition" the organization to create present value for it members, and for the healthcare system.
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Medicaid Acupuncture and Massage Therapy Pilot, Part #3: Survey Data and Interviews with Patients

In 2002, the legislature of the state of Florida created a pilot program which gave high cost, frequently disabled, chronic pain Medicaid beneficiaries access to the services of licensed massage therapists and acupuncturists. As a pilot project, the state's vendor, Alternative Medicine Integration Group (AMI), was required to annually survey their patients through an independent researcher. This article, Part #3 of the Integrator series on Florida Medicaid Integrative Therapies Pilot, reports data and qualitative information from these mandated patient surveys, SF-12 surveys, and findings from Integrator patient interviews. The short story: beneficiaries speak eloquently about an experience 93% say reduces pain levels and 84% believe boosts their quality of life. The comments from beneficiaries on this whole system of care are more powerful than the hard numbers. One certain conclusion is that the pilot shows us as a caring people.
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Do You Know Where Your Definition Is Tonight? Dana Ullman on the War over Homeopathy in Wikipedia

According to this fascinating and eerie account from homeopath and author Dana Ullman, MPH, "anti-homeopathic fundamentalists have hijacked the Wikipedia information on homeopathy." Ullman asks if anyone else in the complementary and integrative medicine world has encountered similar issues. (Do you know what is being said about your field?) In a time when more of us are relying on quick searches for information, the virtual battleground of Wikipedia is a place where many hearts and minds are being formed, if not won and lost. Take an inside look at Ullman's account of this battle over homeopathy in the Wikipedia world. Do you know who your definition is hanging out with tonight?
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Forum on CAM/IM Practitioners-Natural Products Industry Relationship: 6 Voices

With six new voices, the Integrator conversation on the optimal relationship is enriched. Interestingly, 5 of the 6 wrote as educators. Commenting are Morgan Martin, ND, chair for natural childbirth at Bastyr University; Bill Manahan, MD, co-founder of the American Board of Holistic Medicine; James Winterstein, DC, president of the National University of Health Sciences; Sherman Cohn, JD, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center; Lou Sportelli, DC, president of Integrator sponsor NCMIC; and an anonymous naturopathic physician. This is a rich selection of diverse perspectives.
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Resources

Integrator Archive by Subject for January-June 2007
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Integrator Archive by Subject for 2006: All Hot-linked
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