White House Commission Studies Use of Alternative Health Care

In response to the growing use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in this country, a White House Executive Order was issued in March 2000 asking for a report to advise the President, through the Secretary of Health and Human Services, about the potential benefits of CAM for all citizens. The result was the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy (WHCCAMP).

The Commission consisted of twenty Presidential appointees who gathered information about CAM practices and practitioners through Town Hall meetings, expert testimony, public input, and visits to various clinical settings. They then divided into work groups and developed recommendations intended to help shape the future of public health care policy. The result was a 250-page report, finalized and presented to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson in March 2002. The recommendations within it focus on individual rights, self-care and a team approach to healing. 

Contained in the fifteen-page Executive Summary are the following ten principles the Commission endorsed for integrating CAM into the nation's health care goals. 

1. A wholeness orientation in health care delivery. Health involves all aspects of life-mind, body, spirit and environment-and high-quality health care must support care of the whole person.

2. Evidence of safety and efficacy. The Commission is committed to promoting the use of science and appropriate scientific methods to help identify safe and effective CAM services and products and to generate evidence that will protect and promote public health.

3. The healing capacity of the person. People have a remarkable capacity for recovery and self-healing, and a major focus of health care is to support and promote this capacity.

4. Respect for individuality. Each person is unique and has the right to health care that is appropriately responsive to him or her, respecting preferences and preserving dignity.

5. The right to choose treatment. Each person has the right to choose freely among safe and effective care or approaches, as well as among qualified practitioners who are accountable for their claims and actions, and responsive to the person's needs.

6. An emphasis on health promotion and self-care. Good health care emphasizes self-care and early intervention for maintaining and promoting health.

7. Partnerships as essential to integrated health care. Good health care requires teamwork among patients, health care practitioners (conventional and CAM) and researchers committed to creating optimal healing environments and to respecting the diversity of all health care traditions.

8. Education as a fundamental health care service. Education about prevention, healthy lifestyles, and the power of self-healing should be made an integral part of the curricula of all health care professionals and should be made available to the public of all ages.

9. Dissemination of comprehensive and timely information. The quality of health care can be enhanced by promoting efforts that thoroughly and thoughtfully examine the evidence on which CAM systems, practices, and products are based and make this evidence widely, rapidly, and easily available.

10. Integral public involvement. The input of informed consumers and other members of the public must be incorporated in setting priorities for health care, research, and policy decisions, including those related to CAM, within the public and private sectors.(1)

Education emerges as a crucial element in the guidelines for delivering integrative care and is mentioned throughout the report. Educational priorities cited include the development of "a national campaign that teaches and encourages healthful behaviors for all Americans, including children…that would focus on improving nutrition, promoting exercise, and teaching stress management." 

Prevention practices and the management of chronic disease are also emphasized as areas where instruction involving patients is needed. The report further invites education across disciplines, so that conventional and alternative modalities will be better understood by emerging teams of researchers, practitioners, health services professionals, third-party payors and the public. 

Some of the difficulties faced in the integration process-lack of agreement on basic definitions of terms used by practitioners, an enormous diversity of modalities, and the need to maintain styles of practice currently outside the conventional medical model-are acknowledged. Yet, the Commission calls for further collaboration as the key to resolving such issues, and extends an unprecedented invitation to CAM practitioners to become partners in research, developing standards and creating greater access to therapies.

James S. Gordon, M.D., former Chairman of the Commission, said at a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., "The American people have spoken. They want less invasive, less expensive, more humane treatments whenever possible. Surveys in 1997 showed that forty-two percent of Americans had visited CAM practitioners.(2) The future is not either conventional or alternative medicine, but a careful integration of the best of both fields. Our laws and policies must keep pace with these developments." Gordon now directs the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, a non-profit education organization in Washington, D.C.

Research, education, setting standards and political action are challenges that lie ahead as the integration process proceeds. Practitioners and patients who stay informed about these issues are taking part in creating the future of health care.

References

1. WHCCAMP Executive Summary, http://www.whccamp.hhs.gov/es.html

2. D. Eisenberg, et al. "Trends in Alternative Medicine Use in the U.S., 1990-1997: Results of a Follow-Up National Survey." JAMA 280 (1998) 1569-1575.

Articles >

Experiencing a Session >