Data-driven IMSP Design: Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (EB-CAM™)

To be effective, an Integrative Medicine Services Program (IMSP) must be driven by hospital-specific patient care data. In particular, an organization will want to have access to solid, reliable data that show the types of patients the system treats and where they are treated within the hospital or healthcare system. The first step in this process is to identify the symptoms and conditions that can be effectively treated with CAM therapies. Using this list of symptoms and conditions, the organization should identify the number of patients who meet this diagnostic criteria. It is essential to understand where, in the organization, patients with these CAM-treatable conditions received care, whether as inpatients, clinic patients, rehabilitation patients or at other locations in the system. The diagnostic criteria, together with the care location enables the system to begin to prioritize IMSP planning activities. Knowing where the most potential for CAM therapies exists in the organization also allows the healthcare system to approach physicians who are most likely to treat those patients and ask them to be involved in the planning process. As noted previously in the section on medical staff support, obtaining involvement of physicians as early in the planning process as possible is the key to the success and long-term sustainability of the IMSP. It is imperative that physicians be part of the team that reviews, when necessary, the evidence-based research support for CAM therapies that the hospital may include in its IMSP. The patient and CAM therapy analysis can be performed by the hospital’s information system analysts. As an alternative, CIMEx Health has developed EB-CAM™ (evidence-based complementary and alternative medicine), a web-based application that analyzes hospital discharge data and uses layers of evidence-based research results to create an optimal model of integrative medicine services for a healthcare organization. The program is constantly updated with new research results and can be used to process current hospital clinical discharge data on a monthly or quarterly basis. Ongoing data analysis allows the hospital to identify service trends or possible changes in patient demographics that could lead to modifications in the IMSP.