Project Creative Vision

My Comment on IOM's Panel - Feel Free to Copy

In an earlier post, I urged everyone to write to the IOM and request that holistic practitioners be included on the panel that will be assessing  comparative effectiveness of medical treatments.  The panel's conclusions will serve as a critical piece in the national health care reform. 

Here's the comment I just submitted to the IOM.  Please go here and submit your comment.  And feel free to copy and paste my comment if you don't have the time to write your own.  (Just sign it with your own name, of course!)

To Whom It May Concern:

I was disappointed to find out that no CAM practitioners were included on this highly esteemed panel.  How are we to arrive at a truly effective and cost-efficient health care system when the CAM field is not being represented? 

Given the discussion at IOM's recent Integrative Medicine conference, this is not only disappointing - it is disturbing.  It suggests that IOM had simply paid lip-service to the holistic approach to health care, while in practice intending to do nothing to make CAM modalities more broadly available and affordable to the  public.  

For the comparative effectiveness research to be truly balanced, it must include individuals who are deeply knowledgeable in CAM.  None of the panel members currently assembled have the depth of knowledge required for such a balanced assessment. 

CAM modalities have been shown time and time again to be efficient, cost-effective, and truly geared toward the creation of health rather than disease management.  Public demand for holistic services is at an all-time high and is growing at an unprecedented speed.

Please do the right thing: include some prominent representatives of the CAM field on the panel.

With best regards,
Izabella Tabarovsky
Founder and President
Project Creative Vision
http://www.ProjectCreativeVision.com

Get Your Voice Heard in Health Care Reform

Julia Schopick of Honest Medicine points out in her comment to the recent Holistic Health series on this blog that the proposed panel empowered by the Institute of Medicine to make recommendations on the comparative effectiveness research in health care has no members representing the public, nor members of the alternative/ holistic/ complementary/ integrative community."

She says: "the only patient or consumer representative named to the panel's tentative roster was from the Alzheimer's Association, a single-issue patient advocacy group that receives substantial support from the drug industry."

That's the bad news.

The good news, however, is that the public - that's us, folks! - has until March 23 to add our own comments on IOM's panel. 
 
Why should you care?

If you are a complementary/holistic/alternative medicine practitioner, you have direct interest in getting your voice heard on the thorny issue of comparative effectiveness of treatments.   Do this if you want:

• Fairness and objectivity in the comparative effectiveness assessment

• Broader acceptance of your modality and holistic medicine field generally

• And frankly, if you want to survive financially practicing your art.

If you are a member of the public, your interest is no less direct.  IOM's project, whose full title is Recommendations on the National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research in Health Care, could potentially open the way for you to enjoy the benefits of proven holistic health care techniques on the same terms as the costly, high-tech solutions of conventional medicine that are increasingly devoid of human touch, have dubious efficacy, and are prone to deadly malfunctions and human error. 

This means that your insurance company would potentially reimburse you if you chose to turn to energy healing, accupuncture, aromatherapy, Mind-Body techniques, homeopathy, and whatever else creates health for you.

This also means that your personal medical insurance/ medical care costs could drop precipitously, as would the health care cost of our national as a whole.

IOM's recent Integrative Medicine conference acknowledged that our reimbursement system is highly biased toward medicine that is far more interested in disease management than health creation.  Reimbursement policies favor expensive high-tech solutions while routing the public past holistic modalities that have been conclusively proven highly effective and cost-efficient.

IOM's panel on comparative effectiveness of treatments is expected to consider both conventional and holistic medicine recommendations.  However, with the panel staffed primarily by the stakeholders in the current system, it is critical that those of us with a different vision to speak up.

If you are one of the millions of Americans who've become disillusioned with the solutions provided by conventional medicine, please make your voice heard.  What's at stake is your health and well-being and the health and well-being of your loved ones. 

Julie says: "I am planning to comment that they need to have representatives from the holistic/alternative/integrative communities, and that unless they do, our healthcare system will certainly go broke!"

So please go to this link and add your own view.  Tell them that they need to appoint representatives of the holistic field on the panel.  Tell them that this is critical if we are to create a health care system that serves us, the consumers, rather than insurance companies and big pharma.  It's critical if we are to have a health care system that makes sense and is itself sound and healthy.

New Vision of Holistic Health

As regular readers of this blog know, my interest in holistic holistic health and wellness has grown over the past year.  As a student of energy medicine, aromatherapy, Reiki, and general principles of holistic health, I've come to realize that, if we want to change our lives for the better, we can't be looking at just one isolated slice of our life for the answers.  We are whole, complex human beings, and to create positive change in our lives, we need to treat ourselves as such and address the challenges we face on many different levels.

This growing interest led me last week to the Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public, put together by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.  I left the Summit inspired by the discussion and the possibilities for all of us together to build a society that fosters holistic health and honors each and every one of its members as a whole and complete human being.

To continue the discussion that started there, and extend it to those who were unable to join us, I have invited several friends who are leading the effort here in the Washington, DC area to offer their thoughts and perspectives on the Summit here on my blog.  

Below are the guest posts:

Lucrezia Mangione argues that we are part of a sea change in health care and there is room for all at the table in Creating the Culture of Wellness. 

Daphne White reports on groundbreaking Senate testimonies by Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil, and Mark Hyman, and on Sen. Harkin's moving address to the IOM Summit.  Daphne calls upon all CAM practitioners to "put in sweat equity" to make sure that integrative health care is really part of the health care reform.

And Izabella Tabarovsky (yes, that's me) chimed in with some takeaways concerning what we, as CAM practitioners, can do to make the new, emerging paradigm a reality.

I have also just added a post on Dr. Mehmet Oz's remarks at the event and may be adding more as I go through my notes. 

In the meantime, the full webcast of the conference is now available online, so you can watch the entire event or the parts that interest you the most from the comfort of your own home.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Please share your comments under any of the posts that have caught your attention.  Let's all join in the revolution that's taking place in the way we as a society view and create health and wellness! 

IOM Summit: Opportunities Are Huge

But CAM Practitioners Must Seize the Initiative

 By Izabella Tabarovsky

Note: This post is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

The 3-day Institute of Medicine Summit on Integrative Health was truly mind-broadening for me.  I came away excited about the possibilities and bursting with ideas.

The key was that we are living at a time of huge opportunities.  But no one is going to hand anything to us on a silver platter.  We must fight for what we believe in - and we must get creative about it. 

We can continue complaining how mainstream establishment doesn't recognize or accept us, that insurance companies don't reimburse us, and how the public doesn't understand what we do.  Or we can get beyond the current paradigm and think creatively about our competitive advantages vis-a-vis mainstream medicine and go there. 

Two key ideas were voiced at the Summit in this regard:  Community-based care networks and work-site CAM interventions.  Both require initiative on our part. And to become viable, both require that we overcome our tendency to get silo'ed and act alone.  Right now we will benefit from acting together, from helping each other out, from, together, creating the new paradigm in which the benefits of CAM modalities will be apparent to everyone. 

With that, here, briefly, are some of my take-aways from the Summit:

• The new paradigm is being birthed.  It seemed that everyone, from MDs to insurance reps, agreed that the old paradigm of health care is broken. We are present at the birth of the new paradigm.  No one knows yet what it will be.  The moment to contribute to the shaping of this new paradigm is now.  Each of us participating in the CAM field must now step up to the plate and do our part in making sure that integrative health care truly becomes a reality. 

• From evidence-based practice to practice-based evidence.  Pedigreed scientists such as Ken Brigham and Lawrence Green suggested that "to reject a treatment because we don't understand the mechanism is a mistake." The idea that randomized control trials don't work with CAM modalities and that practice-based evidence is "the only way to integrate practices that have hundreds of years behind them" was voiced repeatedly.  This means that if your practice shows results, that should be considered good enough evidence.  Music to the ears of a CAM practitioner.

• Shortage of primary care physicians creates opportunities for CAM practitioners.  The PCP shortage is already affecting the health care industry.  By 2025 we could be short as many as 200,000 PCPs, and, according to Richard "Buzz" Cooper, the health care reform could increase the shortfall by another 400,000.  Doctors' functions are becoming increasingly narrow and high-tech.  The offloading of tasks by physicians will accelerate, leaving physicians with increasingly narrower responsibilities, more high-tech and less relevant to the real issues affecting the health of their patients.  Other disciplines will, by necessity, be called upon to fill the gap, and this is where CAM practitioners will have their entry.

• There is room for everyone at the table to provide an amalgam of services.  This means that there will be room for everyone, from chiropractors to acupuncturists to health coaches to energy healers in creating an amalgam of care.  Because of the above, we are moving into a place where physicians will share the platform of care with a broad range of non-physician clinicians. 

• We must educate MDs and the public about our modalities. For the above point to be true, PCPs have to become educated about what we as CAM practitioners do.  83 percent of PCP practices in this country are groups of 1 or 2.  They account for nearly 50 percent of primary care.  This means that there are great opportunities to develop community care groups that could include nutritionists, dietitians, social workers, all connected to small PCP practices. The problem is that many times MDs, along with general public, have no idea what it is that we do.  So it is up to each and every one of us to take the initiative and reach out to the PCPs and educate them.  Go introduce yourself to PCPs in your neighborhood, tell them about what you do, show your credentials, build a relationship.  Begin where you are. 

• Empathy is CAM practitioners' competitive advantage.  I was floored by a slide presented by one of the speakers that illustrated the dramatic decline of empathy in medical students as they progress through medical school. This shift particularly affects men, whose levels of empathy drop nearly to zero.  (I don't have that particular slide, but here's a link to another onethat demonstrates the same point.)  What this suggests to me that we as CAM practitioners are, first and foremost, in the business of empathy.  In fact, empathy is our competitive advantage vis-a-vis the MDs - all the more so because studies show that empathy is the top quality that patients long to see in their caregivers.  Emphasize this with your prospects, let this be your selling point.

The one thing I found myself wishing for was that the Summit had lived up to the word "integrative" in its name and included the discussion of mind and spirit, not just the body. Dealing with questions of meaning and purpose is integral to whole person health.  But hey, you can't get everything right right away.  Perhaps next time.   

Sen. Harkin: Time to End Discrimination against Alternative Health Care Practices

Practitioners Must Lobby Congress to Make it Happen

By Daphne White, CHTP

Note: This is a guest post that is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

It was not your usual Senate hearing.  Testifying on behalf of integrative medicine before Senators Harkin, Mikulski and Enzi at the Senate HELP Committee were four leading physicians:  Mehmet Oz, Dean Ornish, Andrew Weil and Mark Hyman.  Testifying on behalf of the status quo was … no one!  That’s an unusual set-up on Capitol Hill, where panels are usually set up to represent “both points of view.”  Lobbyists for the medical establishment were present to watch the proceedings and plot their next steps, but they didn’t have a seat at the table.  Not this time, anyway.

By any measure, it was a watershed week:   the Feb. 26 HELP Committee hearing was the second in four days to focus on integrative medicine.  And the very next day, Sen. Harkin traveled across town to the Institute of Medicine, to address the 500-strong Summit on Integrative Medicine.

“Clearly, the time has come to ‘think anew’ and to ‘disenthrall ourselves’ from the dogmas and biases that have made our current health care system – based overwhelmingly on conventional medicine – in so many ways wasteful and dysfunctional,” Harkin told both groups, borrowing some quotes from President Lincoln’s 1862 address to Congress.

“It is time to end the discrimination against alternative health care practices.  It’s time for America’s health care system to emphasize coordination and continuity of care, patient-centeredness, and prevention.  And it’s time to adopt an integrative approach that takes advantage of the very best scientifically based medicines and therapies, whether conventional or alternative.”

Speaking to the IOM Summit on Monday, Harkin said, “I have just four words for you:  Our time has come!”  He added that IOM visitors to Washington might think “it looks like the same old Washington, but it’s not.” 

Creating a Culture of Wellness

Note: This is a guest post that is part of the discussion on the Summit on Integrative Medicine

By Lucrezia Mangione, CHTP/I, CMT 

Have you ever thought about . . .

• What a healthy health care system looks like?

• What a patient or person-centered approach to health and healing is?
• A place for certified, credentialed and/or licensed health care practitioners co-existing within a system that engenders cross-disciplinary connection, discussion and collaboration? 
• What happens when all credentialed and/or licensed health practitioners collaborate together, in support of the suffering person/patient with an individualized well-care program? 
• What an honest, authentic discussion of the inherent problems with our health care industry and its' sick care model sounds like? 
• The behavioral challenges to better health?
• The class/social  issues that prevent access to health care?

Six hundred health professionals joined together for a lively discussion on these topics and more on Feb. 25-27, 2009.  It was a thought provoking and collaborative experience where I was sincerely surprised to be among peers.  We, the people who genuinely wish to alleviate suffering, engaged in dialog on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public at the Institute of Medicine and Bravewell Collaborative's Summit in Washington D.C.

It was powerful. I was positively impacted.  There were more questions than answers and there is so much to share.  In the spirit of brevity, however, I'll speak to a few points that stood out for me.

This Is What I Learned:

"Person-Centered Care" Is the New Model for Health

Because of the efforts of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners and their holistic work over the years, the new model emerging for health care is a shift to "patient centered cared" or "person-centered care".    The individual is returned to the center of the health care wheel and s/he is the hub around which all else happens.  This shift will take time but there are models that are working already like the eight integrative centers of Bravewell Clinical Network. 

In the meantime, business is the force driving the shift.  Employee wellness centersare arising within large companies.  Why?  Because the return on investing in an employee's wellness is significant:  employees perform better. There are studies that prove meditation, fitness and health coaching are helping in "presenteeism: be here now" as Dr. Kenneth Pelletier puts it.  Businesses are bringing about the person/patient centered care and self-care empowerment.  See this article on Medtronic:

This Is What I Realized:

Integrative Practitioners Are on the Same Page

How to Get Free Press Coverage for Your Business

This weekend I participated in a Healing Touch practice group in Frederick, MD, and ended up photographed for a story that a local health reporter wrote for Frederick News Post. 

(Yes, that's me in the picture, so you can consider this post to be shameless self-promotion - or just an illustration of a point I make below.)

The story happened unexpectedly, and it reminded me of something that entrepreneurs frequently forget.  Getting the press to write about you is a fantastic, free way to promote your business. 

Getting local press coverage does several things:

• It raises everyone knowledge and awareness of what you are doing  
• It raises your profile in the community
• It gives you more credibility with potential clients
• It adds to your marketing capabilities (you can link to the story from your website, distribute the article at your workshops, email it to clients and prospects, etc.)
• It may lead to bigger and better coverage in the future.  (As they say in PR, press begets press.  To get on Oprah, you need to start somewhere.)

Getting the local press to write about you is not as hard as you may think.  The key to remember is that local reporters are often actively looking for something interesting to write about.  Many will be grateful to hear from you if you just give them a call and make what you do sound relevant to their readers' interests.   

In our case, the reporter found us through the Frederick News Post's community calendar (another idea for free advertisement) - most likely because she had a story to file that Saturday and was looking for ideas.  Our Healing Touch group sounded intriguing enough for her to come and check us out - and voila, we now have online and offline press coverage. 

If you want to get more press for your business, you don't have to wait for a reporter to discover you.  You can - and should - be more proactive about it.  Here are a few things to remember:

• Start with the local press. Local reporters are more hungry for news and are more oriented toward community events than the Washington Posts and the New York Times's of the world.  Their job is to write stories, and on a slow news day they will likely be grateful for your call, especially if it leads to a story for them. 

• Make your story sound relevant and intriguing.  You are more likely to attract attention if you are putting together an interesting event, a workshop or a presentation.  But if your business concept is unusual in and of itself, if you yourself have an interesting personal story that you can share (How did you get to do what you're doing?  Did you have some exceptionally difficult obstacles to overcome?), if you are targeting populations that tend to get overlooked, or are doing something different in other ways, you are likely to attract attention.

• Make your story sound relevant. When pitching your story, try to put yourself in the reporter's shoes.  What do her readers want to read about? How is your story relevant to their concerns? Why would the reporter want to attend? 

• Make things as convenient for the reporter as possible.  Reporters are busy people.  Their job is to collect enough information, then go home and write their story.  Most likely they won't stick around for your entire event or workshop. Make sure you understand what the reporter's deadline is and how much time she will have with you.  Find a few satisfied customers she could interview who would testify to all the great things you're doing - and make sure they are right there for her to speak with.  Give the reporter a chance to experience what you do.  Prepare a package of facts about your business that the reporter may refer to when she sits down to write her story. Above all, make sure she has a positive experience from interacting with you and finds you credible.  In other words, treat this as any other business relationship

Once you've accumulated enough local press clippings, you can go to the bigger guys, and they'll be more open to hearing from you.