The Hospital Practice Handbook for EAM (Acupuncturist) Practitioners: Our Vision

www.thehospitalhandbook.com

Our Vision for the HH Project

last revised 3.3.2020

In 2016 I created this wisdom-sharing resource, the Hospital-Based Practice Handbook Project for Acupuncturists and their Hospital Sponsors (Administrators). The Project supports this challenging new avenue of employment for acupuncturists. The Project enables hospital program managers to learn and share the latest evidence-based practices and research in the integrative medicine field and include the acupuncturists in each step.

The Project is a resource for licensed acupuncturists. More acupuncturists are being hired in hospitals, FQHCs, hospice, county clinics, and other mid to large healthcare systems. The Project is designed to streamline these hiring procedures and promote the integration of acupuncturists into any hospital's biopsychosocial patient-centered care model. Specifically, the Project facilitates a clear understanding of how acupuncturists' procedures and approaches can complement ongoing patient care in each service line. This can reduce miscommunication about the hiring of licensed acupuncturists as well as illustrate the value of LAcs as health care professionals working as advanced practice clinicians.

The Project helps hospitals streamline the hiring of licensed acupuncturists by providing the hiring staff and credentialing team with published standards on hiring and credentialing of them. The Project connects users to resources that include basic program frameworks--from standard operating procedures (SOPs) to clinical outcome metrics.

The Project is a resource for program managers. Whether the goal is to address increased patient demand for integrative health services or to meet Joint Commission, CDC, and HHS/CMS recommendations for non-pharm options for pain management, this resource is an important asset for the champions and change-makers in the healthcare field. It provides documentation standards and templates as well as practical program standards and outcome metrics.

The Project is a knowledge-sharing network designed to quickly and successfully implement a cross-section of programs, from new program setup to selection of relevant metrics that track cost savings and patient-centered outcomes. Whether it's program success in these patient-centered outcomes or improved access to non-pharm pain care, the Project provides versatile applications for all hospital programs. It also presents effective models for revenue generation as well as service reimbursement.

The Project supports individual program managers as well as their hospital by facilitating connections

between other managers who work with integrative health (IH) professionals or run IH programs. This is important because it helps in-house acupuncturists understand the pressures and standards the facility is working toward; for example, it's handy for developing (or improving) a clinic's outcome measures to align its metrics with the facility's larger mission and vision.

The Project connects standards of practice in documentation (coding, use of relevant research-validated metrics), compliance, billing, and reimbursement models, and research. It also connects the user to resources in health policy, thus directly affecting an acupuncturist's hospital-based practice.

A Resource for All.

The Project is designed for use by all healthcare professionals, not just licensed acupuncturists. It can help both program managers and LAcs streamline a set of new programs before they are implemented or assist with the move into new areas by connecting colleagues such that everyone can learn from each other's successes and failures.

The Project connects users to relevant published research and program frameworks (from feasibility studies to pragmatic trials.) This offers great potential for collaboration in multi-site research projects. The Project hosts discussions of relevant research in the field as well as vetted recommendations for continuing education resources, whether it's through courses or conferences. Included are both closed group resources for discussion and social support through connections to mentors and existing resources and the beta-testing of new resources.

Project resources include