Impact of a Clinical Educational Effort in Driving Transformation in Health Care.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to assess whether a 2.5 day clinical education course focused on integrative medicine (IM), complementary health (CH), and patient-centered care strategies delivered to staff at Veteran Health Administration (VHA) facilities resulted in changes in attitudes, self-efficacy, preparedness, intentions, and self-reported use of IM strategies. The study also assessed whether there were differential impacts by participant characteristics. METHODS: The study used a pre-post intervention group-only design with participants who completed self-report pre, post, and 2-month follow-up surveys. The course was delivered to 15 VHA facilities, reaching a total of 655 participants with 407 participants completing the 2-month follow-up survey (65% response rate). RESULTS: Findings suggest that the clinical course was associated with changes in all outcomes at the 2-month follow-up, including attitudes, self-efficacy to engage in IM strategies, institutional support, perceived preparedness to discuss non-pharmaceutical approaches to care, intentions to engage in IM strategies, and greater engagement in IM behaviors during clinical encounters. Differential impacts were found for younger participants, longer tenured staff, non-nursing compared to nursing staff, and among those who volunteered as opposed to those who were required to attend. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The study found significant positive changes in all outcomes measured at the 2-month follow-up. Positive impacts were found across a variety of participant characteristics. Findings suggest that this brief experiential course, designed to be a foundational strategy in driving transformation is effective in shifting attitudes, self-efficacy, preparedness, intentions, and self-reported use of IM strategies.

Credentialing of practitioners of botanical medicine.

This article discusses how practitioners, regardless of other professional licenses they may hold, could be credentialed in botanical medicine. The article reviews the field of clinical botanical medicine and the history and modern status of botanical medicine, as well as organizations currently involved in botanical medicine credentialing. Many different types of professionals prescribe botanical medicines, and the potential for collaboration among them is great. The current trend treats botanical medicine as a narrow subdivision of allopathic medicine and does not acknowledge the breadth, depth, and diversity of botanical medicine and ultimately will not provide maximum benefits for patients. An alternative approach that instead credentials practitioners skilled in the use of a wide variety of botanical medicines in a responsible, scientific fashion is presented.