We are in the midst of a Health Care Revolution. It has been happening for some time, and has recently gained momentum. People have been exploring other options for their health. Therefore, it has been the consumers driving the revolution.
Here is evidence of the trend toward expanding health care options:
Mayo Clinic is now offering Complementary/Alternative Medicine joining other hospital and clinics who have in recent years begun to offer these services after scientific research has verified that services such as Massage Therapy, Music Therapy, Energy Healing, and Guided Imagery decrease pain and anxiety, among many other benefits, and can expedite the overall healing of a person.
A well known Harvard Study from the late 90's captured the consumer's grass roots movement:
Harvard Study
"Americans spend $27 billion a year on herbs, massage, and other elective treatments…They spent $21.2 billion for the services of alternative therapists in 1997 - 12.2 billion of it not covered by insurance, according to the Harvard study… the study found people in the United States made more visits to alternative medicine practitioners than to primary care doctors. The score was 629 million to 386 million."
(The Harvard University Gazette, November 12, 1998)
With the increased use of these services, many terms have been used to describe them including Alternative Medicine, Complementary Medicine, Natural Health Care, Wholistic Health Care, Mind-Body Medicine and Mind-Body-Spirit. The various terms can be confusing for people which leads to confusion about which services may be the most appropriate to use for a given health situation.
Realizing the widespread use of these services, the National Institutes of Health created an institute and center called the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) in 1998. It explores complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science, training complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) researchers, and disseminating authoritative information to the public and professionals.
CAM services are quickly becoming part of mainstream health care as research shows many therapeutic benefits and more people find them helpful. When CAM is combined with Conventional Medicine, it is known as Integrative Medicine. More hospitals and medical settings are offering CAM/Integrative Medicine to their patients and more Medical schools are teaching these approaches.
The National Institutes of Health does a nice job describing this:
"Complementary/Alternative Medicine (CAM) is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. While some scientific evidence exists regarding some CAM therapies, for most there are key questions that are yet to be answered through well-designed scientific studies-questions such as whether they work for the diseases or medical conditions for which they are used.
The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care and as new approaches to health care emerge.
Complementary Medicine is used together with conventional medicine.
Alternative Medicine is used in place of conventional medicine.
Integrative Medicine combines mainstream medical therapies and CAM therapies for which there is some high-quality scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness."
Optimistically, with time, I believe the gap between CAM and Conventional Medicine will narrow as mutual respect is achieved, and many terms used to describe the various health care options will become uniform. All of the beneficial approaches will be available and respected. They will be integrated into one system and it will simply be called health care. How health care is delivered will adapt to accommodate this new paradigm.