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

White House Commission Chair James Gordon, MD on Federal Policy in Integrative Practice: Looking Back - Looking Forward

[Written for Integrative Practitioner Online] This Presidential election season medical reform is in the air. I decided to interview James Gordon, MD, who chaired the most concerted look at the potential for a federal government role in fostering integrative care in the United States. The report of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy was published 6 years ago. I asked Gordon to recall his hopes for those recommendations, then to enumerate where the Commission's work has had value and where it has come up short. Gordon, author of Manifesto for a New Medicine (and more recently Unstuck), grades the outcomes of the Commission's work - both the government response and that of the integrative practice community. Do we need to have a national Office of some kind, to more fully move this agenda?
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NCCAM Research Spending 2005-2007 by Modality: What are the Big 3? Any Surprises?

Integrator reader and sometimes commentarist Taylor Walsh recently asked staff at the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine for data on the specific amounts of grant awards for specific modalities in fiscal years 2005-2007. Walsh, the founder and CEO of Washington, D.C.-based Life Pages, shared the data with the Integrator. Here are his findings. What do you suppose are the top 3 modalities? What is the percentage of NCCAM's $362-million for those three years which were spent on the top three? How does this meet your sense of priorities?
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AHA-Health Forum 2008 Report: 37% of Hospitals Have Some Complementary and Alternative Medicine

37% of hospitals offered some form of complementary and alternative medicine in 2007, up from 26% in 2005. This is the marquis finding from the recently published Summary of Results of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Survey of Hospitals from the American Hospital Association/Health Forum. However, a low response rate raises initial questions about whether the trend line is positive. In addition, inclusion of many key modalities in hospitals that offer CAM is actually down. Here are data and analysis from this always useful pulse on the uptake of non-conventional therapies into US hospitals. Credit AHA/Health Forum and Sita Ananth, MHA, the lead author. Is CAM inclusion in hospital care actually trending upward?
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Allina Honors Integrative Medicine Visionary: U.S.'s Top Hospital Program Becomes the Penny George Institute for Health & Healing

Penny George, one of a handful of individuals who has had the most significant influence on the development of integrative medicine in the United States, was honored recently by Allina Health System. Allina announced that it will change the name of its leading edge, inpatient-outpatient integrative center to the Penny George Institute for Health and Healing. The September 26, 2008 Allina release only suggests the many strategic roles George has played in advancing this movement in US and global health care. George's story begins with a personal experience of breast cancer. Her vision led to the formation of an influential academic consortium, development of a collaborative of philanthropists, sponsorship of an IOM summit, lift-off for a key international research conference, enhancement of multidisciplinary initiatives and, on the ground in the Allina system, 8000 outpatient and 14,500 inpatient integrative care visits a year.
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Employers & Integrative Medicine: An Interview with Stages of Change/Readiness for Change Expert James Prochaska, PhD

The pioneering work of James Prochaska, PhD in "stages of change" and "readiness for change" is known to many in the integrative practice community. Changing behaviors is the heart of the best of integrative care. Employers are drawn to Prochaska's work because moving an employee toward change can eventually be monetized. Is this a place for an employer-integrative practice link? I think so. Prochaska will be a featured presenter and workshop leader at the October 15-17, 2008 conference of the Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM), an Integrator sponsor. I look forward to the opportunity to introduce him to Richard Nahin, PhD, MD, senior adviser and acting director of extramural research for NIH NCCAM who will be a keynoter at the meeting. This interview explores Prochaska's work, potential clinical applications in complementary, alternative and integrative medicine research and practice, and the way the reductive research paradigm has hindered application of beneficial change strategies.
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Integrative Medicine and Integrated Healthcare Round-up: October 1-15, 2008

MGMA says some MDs turning to alternative medicine, supplement sales, for business reasons ... Naturopathic specialty board established to promote aesthetic medicine ... American Acupuncture Council promotes programs to get acupuncturists and chiropractors to explore anti-aging medicine ... NCCAM names NIH veteran Jack Killen, MD as Deputy Director ... Institute of Medicine announces agenda for its February 2009 National Summit on Integrative Medicine, not yet much sign of "integration" ... New American Hospital Association report finds 37% of hospitals offering some CAM, a 40% increase in the percent since 2005 ... Yale-Griffin integrative medicine center in new facility ... Donna Karan's Urban Zen initiative brands "new category of integrative practitioner" ... Thumbs up for natural childbirth in Milbank study, and article by obstetrician Bethany Hays, MD ... USA Today features Pentagon's exploration of alternatives ... Plus, Annie Appleseed, patient-centered integrative cancer conference and Integrative medicine Alliance practitioner-centered weekend ... Three of Calabrese's mentees earn NIH awards ...
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Integrative Medicine and Integrated Healthcare Round-up: September 1-15, 2008

CCAOM backs move in the acupuncture profession toward "First Professional Doctorate" ... IAYT reports data on the emerging Yoga therapy field ... ND students set quality standards for nutraceutical partners ... Hopkins opens integrative clinic with GI focus ... Hawaii Consortium for Integrative Healthcare begins monthly television program ... New ACOEM guidelines for chronic pain elevate role of acupuncture, yoga ... Employer group IHPM begins worksite metabolic health initiative ... American Specialty Health receives awards ... Standard Process' president Charlie DuBois joins board of chiropractic research group ... Council for Responsible Nutrition selects naturopathic physician Douglas MacKay, ND as vice president for regulatory and scientific affairs ... Changes at the top for American Association for Health Freedom ... Primary care needs to be aggravated by disappearing interest among med school grads, plus
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Integrative Medicine and Integrated Health Care Round-up: September 16-30, 2008

New 18-practitioner integrative clinic and robust growth at Samaritan Health Services ... Inner Harmony celebrates 10th year and moves to new space at Scranton's Mercy Hospital ... HRSA in $310,000 grant to Palmer College of Chiropractic and Jefferson's integrative medicine program for multidisciplinary practice-based CAM-IM research network ... National College of Natural Medicine expands ... AHEC grant funds scholarship for fellowship at Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine to help serve underserved ... Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, a research-education-integration leader for AOM marks 25th year ... Board of NADA, the acu-detox group, affirms value of 5-point protocol for stress, pain management, not just detox ... Report on national massage therapy clinical practice guidelines funded and developed through Massage Therapy Foundation ... American Chiropractic Association announces policy-related action of its House of Delegates ... Signature Supplements gets high tech business development loan from state of Maryland ... Update on Minnesota-based Collaboration Health Care group started by form American Chiropractic Network team, plus
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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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