SpeakHealth is an initiative connecting our interactive, multimedia capabilities with the Institute’s core goals:
To provide an environment for innovative thinking on health and healthcare;
To foster collaborations, and
To facilitate the testing and implementation of novel solutions.
As such, SpeakHealth serves the broad communication needs of our Forums, Scholars and Trainings, as well as being an avenue for receiving and disseminating views and information from the healthcare community and the wider public.
Forums
As follow-up to the Stakeholder Symposium on the Evidentiary Framework for Complementary and Integrative Medicine (CIM), co-sponsored with the Center for Medical Technology Policy in November 2009, the Institute hosted a three-week online discussion, April 12-30, 2010. The intent was to invite a multidisciplinary range of stakeholders – integrative medicine researchers and clinicians, public health experts and policy-makers, payers and the public – to engage online together in three major areas:
Stakeholder Needs – When making healthcare decisions, what information do we stakeholders want and need? What outcomes matter to us and therefore should be measured? Are we able to compare treatments – for example, can we compare conventional and CIM approaches – and have confidence in the information we’re using? How can we get high-quality comparative effectiveness research (CER) to support the healthcare decision-making needs of all stakeholders?
Research Methods – If commonly used research methods aren’t giving us the kinds of information and the comparative data we need for decision-making, then what other innovative research designs can help to provide it? If these new methods are considered less ‘rigorous’ than randomized controlled trials, is it possible to achieve both rigor and relevance in clinical research? How can we balance the internal validity and the external validity – the practical application – of clinical research?
Cost-Effectiveness – Potentially, CER can give us comparative data on the cost-effectiveness of different medical options. What do we know about the cost-effectiveness of the CIM approach to healthcare? How can CER be used to help us understand the potential of integrative medicine to lower the national healthcare bill? Can CER give CIM a place in the coverage and reimbursement system?
The full discussion from this online event (now closed to further comment) can be reviewed online at
The Symposium Information and Access Page
(User ID and password are both: tiihguest).
This three-week event showed that a wide array of researchers, clinicians, policy experts and the public want to engage in timely discussion of important healthcare topics and that the Institute plays a valuable role as online convener. This form of discussion will be integral to future Institute Forums.
Scholars
Though Institute Scholars are far-flung, SpeakHealth capabilities enable them to stay in touch, pose questions, share resources and support each other’s work. We are pleased to provide this venue for creative communication among a distinguished group of clinicians and researchers.
Training
The core purpose of the Institute’s training program, Educating for Enhanced Self-Awareness and Self-Care: An Experiential Faculty Training in Mind-Body Medicine, is to seed health professional schools, globally, with faculty who want to establish mind-body medicine programs for their students. A crucial element in the success of this strategy is ongoing support, coaching and mentoring, not only from program directors, but also among the alumni themselves. They form a growing international network of health professionals committed to integrating mind-body medicine into the education and work of next-generation health practitioners. An important SpeakHealth initiative, therefore, is a multimedia venue for information, resources, ideas, strategy and problem-solving, as mind-body medicine is integrated into health professional education around the world.
Conversations on Health
Conversations on Health is our attempt to get underneath the broad assumptions and positions of groups concerned with healthcare, in order to probe and learn from the actual experience and perceptions of a wide range of engaged individuals. The project maintains an ongoing schedule of in-person discussions with key stakeholders, providing a confidential space to discuss fundamental questions, such as, “What is health, really?” and “How do you envision a healthcare system to meet the nation’s real health needs?” This dialogue is invaluable in developing new knowledge while sensitizing the public and decision-makers alike to the significance of Integrative Medicine in addressing the healthcare crisis in the U.S. Among participants in the first twelve Conversations on Health (Fall 2008 – Summer 2009) were physicians, healthcare policy experts, corporate leaders, a nurse-midwife, a social worker, and an attorney. Here is a summary of findings that have influenced the Institute’s future direction.
Lessons learned from the Conversations helped to inform the testimony of Dr. Brian Berman and Susan Berman before the United Sates Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) public hearing on “Principles of Integrative Health: a Path to Health Care Reform” (February 23, 2009. A video of that day’s testimony can be seen at the HELP committee’s web site.) The Conversations pointed us to a range of issues needing the attention of policy-makers and reformers, such as:
1. The need for improved consumer access to health information;
2. Better reimbursement for primary care and prevention, covering a broader range of health care practitioners and health care modalities;
3. Investment in research that has direct impact on translating knowledge into prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease; and
4. Investment in research transforming front-line healthcare by recognizing five major factors in health and well-being: environment, behavior, genetics, social circumstances and healthcare. As an example, we were able to cite efforts such as the Howard County, Maryland, Health Department’s Healthy Howard Initiative and Lockheed Martin’s LMHealthWorks program, already promoting wellness and providing resources to foster the health of individuals and families.
Presentations
Members of our team frequently speak before international, national and local healthcare audiences, including the Royal College of Physicians, the American Psychosomatic Society, the Middle East Cancer Consortium, the Society for Integrative Oncology, the National Institutes of Health, and the Maryland Nurses Association, among others. Future Institute plans include the development of a speakers’ series to be based in Baltimore.