November 2014 John Weeks Integrator Round-Up: Academic Health

by John Weeks, Publisher/Editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports

Touchstone/Wilder: Footholds for Integrative Health in the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education

The founding leader of the Penny George Institute, Lori Knutson, RN, is presently with Touchstone Mental Health., an organization connected via grant with the $13-million, HRSA and foundation-funded National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education (NCIPE). Knutson sent the Integrator this useful notice: “I wanted to let you know about the IPE/CP [interprofessional education/community practice] work going on in Minneapolis focused on community health. There was an [NCIPE] grant with the U of M School of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Occupational Therapy with Community Partners:  Touchstone Mental Health (adults) and The Wilder Foundation (child/adolescent mental health). Through Touchstone the IPE team includes acupuncturists, massage therapist, nurse practitioner in functional medicine, exercise physiologist, and a health coach. The focus of this integrative IPE team with the U of M Students is the development and implementation of Integrative Wellness Plans for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness and chronic health conditions. Measures include Triple Aim as well as specific PROMIS indicators. This project is the only ‘integrative’ initiative [via NCPIE] I am aware of.”

by John Weeks, Publisher/Editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports

Touchstone/Wilder: Footholds for Integrative Health in the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education

The founding leader of the Penny George Institute, Lori Knutson, RN, is presently with Touchstone Mental Health., an organization connected via grant with the $13-million, HRSA and foundation-funded National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education (NCIPE). Knutson sent the Integrator this useful notice: “I wanted to let you know about the IPE/CP [interprofessional education/community practice] work going on in Minneapolis focused on community health. There was an [NCIPE] grant with the U of M School of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Occupational Therapy with Community Partners:  Touchstone Mental Health (adults) and The Wilder Foundation (child/adolescent mental health). Through Touchstone the IPE team includes acupuncturists, massage therapist, nurse practitioner in functional medicine, exercise physiologist, and a health coach. The focus of this integrative IPE team with the U of M Students is the development and implementation of Integrative Wellness Plans for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness and chronic health conditions. Measures include Triple Aim as well as specific PROMIS indicators. This project is the only ‘integrative’ initiative [via NCPIE] I am aware of.”

Comment: Efforts have certainly been made to insert licensed complementary and alternative medicine professions and integrative practices into the national IPE dialogue- and specifically NCIPE. The Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC), with which I am involved, has prioritized this work. Over 4 dozen individuals and organizations with which it is associated have signed up into NCIPE’s community – which you can do by following that link. NCIPE director Barbara Brandt, PhD keynoted the CAHCIM-ACCAHC-Georgetown International Congress for Educators in Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Yet what Knutson describes is the only place that these professions have their “boots on the ground” in this major initiative. Good work!

 

Community Clinical Training Programs at Southern California University and Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine Noted in IOM Report

The Institute of Medicine workshop summary, Building Health Workforce Capacity Through Community-Based Health Professional Education, is a rare IOM report that references institutions associated with the licensed complementary and alternative healthcare professions.  The references came from work led by Robb Russell, DC, of Southern California University (SCU), Nick De Groot, ND of Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM), Myles Spar, MD of Venice Family Clinic and this writer. The team produced a 6 minute webinar segment and a poster, delivered by Russell and available here, the abstracts for which are included in the Appendices B and C, respectively. Both related to community-based education experiences: SCU’s collaboration with Spar’s Venice Family Clinic, and CCNM’s with a local hospital. These placements grew out of the membership of the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care (ACCAHC) in the IOM Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education, which convened the workshop.

Comment:  Both were truly made possible via Russell’s work, SCU’s support, and the leadership of ACCAHC’s chair Elizabeth Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA, who is a member of the Global Forum.