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: July 18-August 5, 2009
Controversial NCCAM report suggests use of CAM practitioners may be down 50% between 1997 and 2007 ... IHPC offers opportunity for integrative practice community to participate in federal policy work, starting with thanking US Senator Sanders ... Homebirth midwives make huge commitment to lobbying Congress for inclusion under healthcare reform ... Boston Globe says Harkin, others are pushing for coverage of licensed CAM practitioners in reform package ... Invite to September 25, 2009 Dr. Rogers' Price gala where $250,000 will be awarded to a top integrative practice leader ... Health Journey's Belleruth Naparstek shares significant advances of mind-body approaches in the military ... James Gordon, MD to chair new College of Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University ... Obama team convenes group of employers to explore progressive health and productivity program for federal employees ... Pelletier examines 2004-2008 employer studies of cost-benefits of health promotion programs ... Holistic nurses name Hines to national presidency ... Renaud steps down after 16 years managing acu-detox association, new manager sought ... Abrams/Weil Integrative Cancer book becomes standard textbook for the field ... Example of integrative center inside a private medical group sought. More
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Honoring Acupuncture Researcher Richard Hammerschlag, PhD: Six Voices on His Roles and Post-Retirement Plans
This Integrator article honors acupuncture and Oriental medicine researcher Richard Hammerschlag, PhD, who retires this month from a decade of productive leadership. Those commenting include Elizabeth Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA, Brian Berman, MD, Anne Nedrow, MD, Rosa Schnyer, LAc, DAOM, Christine Goertz, DC, PhD, and Dan Cherkin, PhD. Hammerschlag has not only been the lead researcher from a CAM institution in the AOM field. He was also played important roles in the founding of SAR, OCIM, ACCAHC. Hammerschlag's own comments and those of Berman speak to Hammerschlag's upcoming role as a scholar at the Institute for Integrative Health which Berman founded. More
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Health Reform: IFM Declares the Value of Functional Medicine in Exceptional White Paper on 21st Century Medicine
Anyone who wants to see how integrative practice fits into the best currents of actual clinical reform in conventional medicine will want to download or purchase 21st Century Medicine: A New Model for Medical Education and Practice. This savvy 142 page white paper from the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) provides excellent short synopses of prospective health care, personalized medicine, systems biology, evidence-based medicine, integrative medicine, the chronic care model, and to a lesser extent, the primary care medical home. The text and graphics clearly lay out points of overlap and alignment in these movements toward reform that is not merely of payment structures and delivery mechanisms. In their effort to quilt functional medicine into the fabric of conventional initiatives, the IFM author team of David Jones, MD, Laurie Hoffman, MPH and Sheila Quinn has provided a service for all the integrative practice fields. Take a look at this exceptional foray into influencing the healthcare reform debate and see how your experience/field fits, or doesn't. Let's discuss this one. More
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Invited Commentary: Carlo Calabrese, ND, MPH on the Opportunity for CAM and Wellness in Comparative Effectiveness Research
This invited column from whole practice researcher Carlo Calabrese, ND, MPH, offers exceptional insight into the opportunity which does, and may not yet, exist for advancing our understanding of integrative practices through the movement for "comparative effectiveness research" (CER). Calabrese, who currently holds positions with the Helfgott Research Institute and Oregon Health & Sciences University, has focused on practical, real-world outcomes since before he began his MPH work in the early 1990s. His conclusion is both sobering and enlightening as to the steps the CER movement must take to begin to allow the kinds of comparisons wellness, patient-centered care and integrative practice need. The case clearly made in this column should be put in front of President Obama's Federal Research Council on CER. More
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