This year, the UA Center for Integrative Medicine—through which the Division of Integrative Medicine operates—is expanding into new areas and building on our already leading role in integrative health care.
The National Center for Integrative Primary Healthcare, launched in October 2014, is making great strides after its first full year. This collaborative project with the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health, supported by a grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is addressing strategies to expand integrative medicine to underserved populations. At the same time, we began developing our first course for the public. The Integrative Health Self-Care program is an evidence-based approach to teach patients self-care and promote personal healing. We expect that it will lead to better disease prevention, improved management of chronic conditions, and enhanced wellbeing.
As we expand our educational programs to include the public, our Integrative Medicine in Residency (IMR) training has also grown in numbers, locations and specialties. Today, 1,311 residents are enrolled and 488 have graduated from 67 primary care residency sites (including the UA College of Medicine – Tucson) in the United States, Canada and Taiwan. Specialties licensing our IMR curriculum now include family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, preventive medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation medicine — with a pilot project in psychiatry that began in 2015. Every day, these residents deliver IM care to patients at their clinical training sites.
Also this year, our research efforts have taken off. Preliminary data from our Integrative Primary Care Trial reveal a 12 percent increase in perceived patient overall wellbeing after one year of care and extremely high levels of satisfaction with the multiple aspects of care they are receiving. In addition, our Lab-in-a-Bandage technology project is now a core research component of the FlexTech Alliance (of which the Center is a member), working to secure U.S. leadership in the next generation of advanced manufacturing. Among solutions being developed are wearable devices such as sensors and other technologies integrated into clothing, etc., to monitor fitness as well as to help track and diagnose health issues among diabetics and the elderly.
This expansion of Center programs across education, research and clinical care spreads the philosophy and practice of IM within the medical establishment. We are ever grateful for the support you contribute to this ongoing transformation of medicine and health care.
Sincerely,
Victoria Maizes, MD
UA Professor of Medicine, Family Medicine and Public Health
Chief, UA Division of Integrative Medicine
Executive Director, UA Center for Integrative Medicine
Andrew Weil, MD
UA Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Founder and Director, UA Center for Integrative Health
The Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair in Integrative Rheumatology, UA College of Medicine – Tucson