NCIPH Logo
Focusing on Interprofessional
Education, Collaborative Practice
and Evaluation 
September, 2015  |  Volume 2
AzCIM

Welcome to NCIPH 

The Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine (AzCIM) and the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health (The Consortium) in cooperation with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)1 created the National Center for Integrative Primary Healthcare (NCIPH). The purpose of the NCIPH is to advance the incorporation of competency- and evidence-based integrative health (IH) curricula and best practices into primary care education and practice. The most important gap filled by this 3-year project will be the development of a set of competencies and educational materials relevant to and appropriate for use across the entire interprofessional spectrum of primary care practitioners.
NCIPH goals: 
1. Establish a national interprofessional leadership team (InPLT). 
2. Develop core IH competencies for interprofessional primary care teams.
3. Develop a 45-hour interprofessional IH online curriculum for primary care educational programs – Foundations in Integrative Health. 
4. Create an accessible and interactive online infrastructure that will house:
  • IH curricula 
  • Best IH practices for primary healthcare professions
  • Links to partner organizations and IH resources for healthcare professionals
  • Patient portal 
5. Develop patient education IH materials and facilitate access to IH practitioners.

NCIPH Activities and Opportunities to Participate 

Below is a list of NCIPH activities and how you can become involved. 

CURRICULUM – FOUNDATIONS IN INTEGRATIVE HEALTH
Work is underway on developing the 45-hour interprofessional IH online curriculum, Foundations in Integrative Health for primary care educational training programs. The content will respond to the core principles of integrative health and will address the competencies developed by the NCIPH Interprofessional Leadership Team.
Course material will be presented with a focus on an interprofessional collaborative team approach and include diverse case examples. The course modules include: 
  • Introduction to Integrative Health in Primary Care: Patient- and relationship-centered care, definitions related to integrated health, “Triple Aim”, challenges and opportunities of an integrative health approach.
  • Addressing Patients through an Integrative Lens in Primary Care: Integrative health history will be exemplified using several recordings of different health professionals with diverse patients/clients (for example: nutritional, sleep, stress management, nutritional supplements and botanicals, environmental exposures).
  • Integrative Interventions: Learners will use integrative health providers’ input on three cases (an adult, an adolescent, and a community) to identify the health problems and develop an integrative assessment and plan.
  • Prevention and Lifestyle Behaviors/Motivational Interviewing: Introduction to motivational interviewing and development of basic skills in lifestyle behavior change counseling. 
  • Integrative Healthcare in Community Settings and Systems at Large: Skills in assembling and working in integrative health care teams and specific examples of resources to use in primary care settings to provide integrative care to underserved populations.
  • Provider Well-being: Overview of stress and health and the unique challenges health care professionals face in staying well. Health care providers will be taught resiliencs skills that they can put into practice.
  • Final Reflections/Bringing it Home: Since the course is available to a wide variety of health professionals, each learner will reflect and list integrative health skills they will incorporate into their practice.

FOUNDATIONS IN INTEGRATIVE HEALTH – PILOT STUDY


The Foundations in Integrative Health course will be available in January 2016 as part of a pilot study to test and evaluate the curriculum. 
The pilot study is open to educational training programs in primary care, other healthcare professions, and licensed integrative health and medicine. These include primary care residencies, nursing, pharmacy, public health, physician assistants, behavioral health, nutrition, dentistry/oral health, acupuncture/Oriental medicine, chiropractic, naturopathic medicine, massage therapy and direct entry (home birth) midwifery training programs.
Pilot sites will be expected to:
  • Provide a plan and timeline for implementing the course
  • Complete the pilot by July 1, 2016
  • Participate in a training webinar
  • Participate in course evaluation

Are you interested in becoming a pilot site to test and evaluate the curriculum? Click here to pre-register and find out more about pilot site requirements.

COMPETENCIES


At the NCIPH Summit meeting in Tucson in February 2015, the InPLT approved a set of 10 meta-competencies to guide curriculum development.

Read more about the NCIPH competencies development process in the September issue of Global Advances in Health and Medicine : Kligler B, Brooks, AJ, Maizes, V, Goldblatt E, Klatt M, Koithan MS, Kreitzer M, Lee JK, Lopez A, McClafferty H, Rhode R, Sandvold I, Saper R, Taren D, Wells E, Lebensohn P. Interprofessional Competencies in Integrative Primary Healthcare.
 
Please email us at info@nciph.org if you’d like to review and provide feedback on profession-specific competencies.

NCIPH TIMELINE: YEAR 2

  • Foundations in Integrative Health Course development – Ongoing through December, 2015

  • Recruit pilot sites to test Foundations in Integrative Health Course – Ongoing through December, 2015

  • Pilot study Foundations in Integrative Health Course – January – July 1, 2016

  • NCIPH Annual Summit/Faculty Development Meeting – March 2-3, 2016 

  • Analysis of Foundations in Integrative Health Course evaluation data – July – August, 2016

  • Develop Patient Portal on NCIPH website – starting in January, 2016

NCIPH Events 

Learn more about the NCIPH at these upcoming conferences.

8th European Congress for Integrative Medicine - ECIM 2015 Global Summit on Integrative Medicine and Healthcare

Greater Copenhagen, Denmark, September 26-27, 2015
Hear more about the NCIPH and the Foundations in Integrative Health course at the ECIM 2015 Global Summit on Integrative Medicine and Healthcare. Greater Copenhagen, Denmark September 26-27, 2015. Dr. Maizes will be presenting “National Center for Integrative Primary Healthcare: Designing an Introductory Interprofessional Integrative Health Course for Primary Care Educational Training Programs”.

2015 International Conference to Promote Resilience, Empathy and Well-Being in the Health Professions: An Interprofessional Forum

Washington, DC, October 18-21, 2015 
Plan to attend the 2015 International Conference to Promote Resilience, Empathy and Well-Being in the Health Professions: An Interprofessional Forum in Washington, DC, October 18-21, 2015. Drs. Lebensohn, Kligler, Kreitzer, Goldblatt, Klatt and Maizes will be presenting “The National Center for Integrative Primary Healthcare - Fostering Self-care, Resilience and Interprofessional Collaboration in Primary Care Education” on Monday, October 19 at 1:30 PM.

2015 Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions Annual Conference

Scottsdale, AZ, October 28-30, 2015 
Hear more about the NCIPH and the collaboration with Physician Assistant educational training programs at 2015 Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions Annual Conference. Dr. Brooks, Dr. Von, and Professor Ortiz will be presenting “Innovations in Health Professions Education: Incorporating Integrative Medicine Competencies”.

143rd American Public Health Association Annual Conference

Chicago, IL, October 31-November 4, 2015
Plan to stop by Dr. Taren’s poster “Developing Core Competencies for Interprofessional Integrative Healthcare Education: An Example from Public Health” and Dr. Brooks’s poster “Interprofessional Integrative Healthcare Education: What Do Primary Care Educational Programs Need?” during the Education and Training in Integrative Complementary and Traditional Health Practices poster session Monday, November 2, 12:30-1:30 at the 143rd American Public Health Association Annual Conference.

HRSA-CDC webinar series "Preventive Medicine and Public Health Issues"

November 13, 2015; 2 – 3:30 PM EST

Join the HRSA-CDC webinar to hear “National Center for Integrative Primary Healthcare: Empowering Communities through Interprofessional Primary Care Teams” presented by Drs. Lebensohn, Kligler, Brooks, Maizes, Taren, and Wells. Visit the Adobe Connect Link.  
The call-in number for audio is: 1-888-469-2091, and the participant passcode is: 6130745

Contact us


Principal Investigator: Patricia Lebensohn, MD: plebenso@email.arizona.edu
Chair, InPLT: Ben Kligler, MD, MPH: bkligler@chpnet.org
Project Director: Audrey Brooks, PhD: brooksaj@email.arizona.edu
NCIPH general information: info@nciph.org
1  “This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UE1HP27710, National Coordinating Center for Integrative Medicine,  $1,699,998. This information or content and conclusions are those of the authors and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.”