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
Integrative Medicine and Integrated Health Care Round-up: May 29-June 18, 2009
Poll on health reform finds public favors investment in prevention over treatment by 4 to one margin ... Obama on acupuncture and prevention ... U.S. Senator Murray goes to bat for expanding chiropractic to all VA facilities ... Bravewell Collaborative announces "important evening" in Washington, D.C. November 4, 2009 ... AAAOM renews push for acupuncturists in medicare, federal employee benefits ... Chiropractors challenge Office of Inspector General Report on over-payments ... Massage accrediting agency names Henrioulle as executive director, Schwartz as top volunteer ... Association of Chiropractic Colleges in expanded role internationally, meet with Sebelius at WHO meeting ... International organization of health services researchers in complementary and integrative medicine meets in Brisbane, educator meeting in England ... Society for Integrative Oncology focuses on whole systems, interdisciplinary practices, at November 2009 meeting ... MSNBC series negative on CAM, 76% of in reader poll "skeptical" about alternative medicine; NCCAM's director Briggs responds ... Oregon Public Broadcasting stimulates online debate over prescriptive rights and primary care in naturopathic practices ... Gawande's New Yorker article on money-making corrupting medicine makes Obama's must-read list ... 2.5-year-old community acupuncture clinic, Communi-chi, provides 5000th patient visit ... Educators offered free access to online version of American College of Physicians CAM book.
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So what does the youthful new president of the United States of American think about complementary and alternative medicine? Despite very positive comments about the importance of prevention, we've seen nothing on this topic from Barack Obama other than a campaign-era letter of support for chiropractic. Thanks to a questioner in a public forum last month, we now have more of an answer. Here is the transcript of those comments, in full. The short answer: Obama wouldn't mind a massage, thinks science has shown some value in acupuncture, and links this subject with his administration's efforts to promote a prevention orientation via healthcare reform. Obama is articulate about the resistance to prevention orientation in both the political and healthcare arenas. It's a rich exchange involving science, prevention and politics, mixed in with a little humor. http://theintegratorblog.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=571&Itemid=189">more... Patient-Center Care Finds "Extremist" Advocate in Donald Berwick; Money-Centered Care Blasted in the New Yorker
Two recent articles underscore a key battleground in healthcare reform the conflict between patient-centered care and any other foci, whether MD interest, money-making, or some combination. The Institute for Health Improvement's Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, arguably the most influential physician of our time, offered a 10-page critique of prior health reform efforts in Health Affairs. He declares himself an "extremist" on behalf of a patient-centered and consumerist approach to care. Meantime, physician-journalist Atul Gawande, MD, writing in the New Yorker, explores the Texas town of McAllen, where healthcare costs are highest in the nation. He concludes that the culture of medicine has been systematically overrun by the money-making motives in McAllen's physician and delivery community. Gawande resists arguing for it, but makes clear that it is employed physicians, rather than for-profit physician entrepreneurs, who are more likely to put patients and teamwork, first. Late-breaking: The New York Times reported that Obama has made the Gawande piece mandatory reading. http://theintegratorblog.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=566&Itemid=189">more... Do the Math: The Medical Industry Plan to Cut $2-Trillion is a Gambit to Save Their Bacon
In mid-May, the private-sector powers-that-be in US healthcare announced that they had a plan to cut $2-trillion from US medical expenses over a 10 year period. The much-publicized offer from the American Medical Association plus American Hospital Association plus insurers plus pharmaceutical industry (with a token union thrown in) was characterized as "unlikely bedfellows" by an AMA spokesperson. Sounds like a lot of money to give back, doesn't it? Never mind for a moment that when Obama asked them for details, they only found $1.7-trillion. But some simple mathematics, informed by thinking from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), suggests that this target is not only extremely unambitious, it may be a largely self protective gambit. The differential between what the ruling stakeholders in US medicine are willing to consider ceding back to the public and what they ought to be ceding based on an IOM-based projection for a rational, non-wasteful, less harmful system, is between $633-billion and $1.15 trillion per year. Rather than unlikely bedfellows, we seem to be seeing here the circling of the wagons by medicine's economic oligarchy to hold onto the profits from waste. http://theintegratorblog.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=569&Itemid=189">more...
Integrative Medicine and Integrated Health Care Round-up: March 3-April 7, 2009
NCCAM challenged in Washington Post piece ... Consumer Reports finds highest satisfaction with chiropractors for back pain ... Economic downturn and consumer-directed healthcare appear to be good for supplements sales ... American Health Journal and AANP team for 6-part PBS series on naturopathic medicine ... Massage licensing boards under attack in 2 states ... InnoVision, publisher of ATHM and other peer-reviewed journals in integrative practice purchased, exits Chapter 11 ... Lobbyist Peter Reinecke and Jeanne Drisko, MD on Obama's HHS nominee, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius ... Disease management giant Healthways appoints Mark Nolting, ND, LAc to head up integrative medicine ... Andrew Weil's foundation scores coup in appointing former medical school dean James Dalen, MD, MPH to executive director ... Two Integrator contributors, Stephen Bolles, DC and Erik Goldman organize conferences on key integrative practice themes, the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, and business success, respectively.
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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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