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Figure 3: 2007 Inpatient and Outpatient CAM Services
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Figure 4: Reasons Hospitals Choose to Offer CAM Services
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Figure 5: How Patients Pay for CAM Services
The most challenging part of complementary medicine is that patients’ beliefs in these therapies may be so strong that even if the doctor says it won’t work, that will not necessarily change that belief.
—Suzanne Bertisch, MD, MPH, fellow, Harvard Medical School’s Osher Research Center
Complementary Medicine: Online Resources
- National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine: http://nccam.nih.gov
- Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s About Herbs: www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11570.cfm
- Natural Standard: www.naturalstandard.com
- The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Complementary/Integrative Medicine Education Resources: www.mdanderson.org/departments/CIMER
What Trends Show
In 2007, according to the American Hospital Association, 20.8% of community hospitals offered some type of care or treatment not based on traditional Western allopathic medicine. That’s up from 8.6% of reporting hospitals that offered those services in 1998.
The 1990s saw rapid growth of integrative medicine centers at major research institutions, and the majority of U.S. cancer centers now offer some form of complementary therapy, says Barrie R. Cassileth, MS, PhD, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine and chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
The 2007 Health Forum/AHA Complementary and Alternative Medicine Survey of Hospitals reported that complementary programs are more common in urban rather than rural hospitals; services vary by hospital size (see Figure 2, above); and the top six modalities offered on an inpatient basis are pet therapy, massage therapy, music/art therapy, guided imagery, acupuncture, and reiki (see “Glossary of Complementary Terms,” above). Eighty-four percent of hospitals offer complementary services due to patient demand, the survey showed.
Joseph Ming-Wah Li, MD, FHM, SHM board member and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the hospital medicine program and associate chief of the division of general medicine and primary care at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, doesn’t see a problem with modalities that can make his patients feel better. Patients at his hospital have access to pet therapy, massage, and acupuncture. “I don’t think these modalities hurt our patients, and there is very little downside, except for potential cost,” says Dr. Li, an SHM board member. “What’s not clear is whether these therapies work or not.”
What’s in a Name?
Numerous therapies and modalities crowd under the CAM umbrella, but most experts classify “complementary” modalities as those used in conjunction with conventional medicine to mitigate symptoms of disease or treatment, whereas “alternative” connotes therapies claiming to treat or cure the underlying disease. Some harmful, dangerous, and dishonest practices fall into the “alternative” category, such as Hulda Clark’s “Zapper” device, which was promoted as a cure for liver flukes, something she says cause everything from diabetes to heart disease. (For more on questionable practices, visit www.quackwatch.com or the National Council Against Health Fraud’s Web site at www.ncahf.org.)
The National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) defines CAM as a group of “diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine.” Dr. Cassileth says the conflation of “complementary and alternative” into one neat acronym—CAM—causes confusion among patients and medical professionals. NCCAM will be changing its name soon, she says, to the National Center for Integrative Medicine, emphasizing the use of adjunctive modalities along with conventional medical treatments.
Hospitalist Suzanne Bertisch, MD, MPH, recently completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Osher Research Center. She explains that integrative medicine uses a macro model of health, claiming a middle ground between the traditional, allopathic model of treating disease.
