Integrative medicine is finding more of a foothold in the traditional medicine space. As it grows more prevalent it benefits all of us to better understand how conventional healthcare approaches and complementary whole-person approaches to care can work together to achieve optimal health for our patients.

What is integrative medicine? It’s called integrative medicine because the inherent goal is to “integrate” every aspect of well-being to achieve our best health. Evolving over thousands of years, integrative medicine combines the best of both worlds by using evidence-based complementary modalities with the latest conventional approaches to medicine. It seeks to empower the patient through a shared decision-making and accountability process, and to engage in their health journey with a whole-person approach to care that looks at the social, behavioral and lifestyle determinants of health. This personalized approach, where by design more time is spent with each patient, can help them to prevent, treat and sometimes even reverse chronic disease, thereby resulting in the need for fewer medications and unnecessary hospital visits.

HonorHealth Integrative Medicine does not provide or supplant traditional primary care, but instead supports you and your care team as a consultation service. Using an evidence-based and holistic approach, all our physicians have completed a two-year fellowship in integrative medicine, in addition to their primary specialty training. We focus on lifestyle and food as medicine, in addition to needed medications or medical procedures. In addition to physician consultations that are covered by insurance with co-pays, patients can also receive services such as nutrition counseling with a licensed dietician, massage therapy, acupuncture and even insurance-covered group medical visits for optimizing movement, the use of food as medicine, menopause and diabetes.

Who might you consider referring to integrative medicine?

1. Patients who are asking for a non-pharmacological approach which includes lifestyle changes like diet or exercise, as well as evidence-based complementary therapies like acupuncture or supplements.
   • These patients are usually more engaged in actively managing their health and may ask questions about alternative treatments, nutrition or ways to optimize health and longevity.
   • By referring these patients to integrative medicine you are providing them with the evidence-based resources they need.
2. Patients who have common chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease (or risk factors like hypertension or hyperlipidemia), are overweight or obese, have metabolic syndrome, chronic pain from arthritis, or with food sensitivities and gastrointestinal conditions like irritable bowel syndrome.
   • These patients can benefit from our focus on lifestyle changes like diet, sleep optimization, stress reduction, improving relationships and how they cope with challenges to combat side-effects from medications, and even deprescribe certain medications as patients make progress in their health goals with our help.

Have questions or want to refer a patient? Call HonorHealth Integrative Medicine at 480-587-6930.