Executive Order 13544, a requirement under H.R. 3590, established the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. Over time this executive order may profoundly change our healthcare delivery model. In fact, it has the potential to exponentially increase consumer access of integrative care, compel payers to cover many interventions not currently covered; and importantly, change the economic and clinical models for practitioners of evidence-based integrative medicine. Here’s why:
The Council shall:
Not sure what you’re seeing, but to me that’s a whole lot of mentions of integrative health, prevention, wellness and health promotion.
It gets better.
After two calls for public comments on the Strategy, the Obama administration has begun to appoint its first Advisory Group. Among the members are Charlotte Kerr, RSM, MPH, a nursing professor who holds a masters in acupuncture and Sharon Van Horn, MD, MPH, a clinical pediatrician who completed the Integrative Medicine Fellowship program at the University of Arizona. To date, about half of group has been appointed.
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The national strategy shall:
Naturally there is a requirement for evidence-based action and priorities. But much work remains to be done in this area. Specifically, substantive research on “whole person”, multi-modality, integrative lifestyle programs has been non-existent. Dr. Dean Ornish’s work in the area of heart disease and prostate cancer was impressive, and his cardiac program is now covered by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but it remains incredibly difficult to procure government funding for innovative, synergistic lifestyle programs that do not adhere to basic reductionistic research models
Currently there’s a lot of excitement around Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER), where primary outcomes are squarely focused cost savings. In support of the tenets of the National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) created by Congress should be encouraged to recommend an evidence-based integrative medicine arm for each and every appropriate CER study.
There is reason to believe that future CER studies–assuming they include integrative arms–will show cost savings just like these small studies showed in 2010. Once positive economic outcomes are proven under the umbrella of CER, more evidence-based integrative medicine modalities will be covered by payers. And additional research designs in support of comprehensive, whole person, integrative studies will not only be encouraged by the government, but mandated. Now that would be a true game-changer–for consumer access, payer coverage and the economics of integrative care.
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The Rise of Integrative Health & Medicine
By Glenn Sabin and Taylor Walsh
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