Update on my Workers' Comp Supplement Resource, "Practitioner Perspective"

keywords:  projects, resources, workers' comp, return-to-work model, documentation standards

So, Indiegogo requires me to post monthly updates.  If you didn't follow the spring campaign you can check it and learn more about our project lists and related projected budgets (per project) here.

Today's update is about my more recent volunteer work with creating a supplemental resource for state (Washington) practitioners who have enrolled in the new WA State L&I Acupuncture Pilot.  It is a work-in-progress and I will link to the course when it is more refined.

However, there are some outgoing expenses for the worker's comp Practitioner resource.  If you are interested in supporting this specific project, you can donate to WEAMA, the nonprofit state professional organization that has been spearheading this work the last 5+ years.  To donate, please go to the WEAMA webpage and tag "for Megan's L&I Resource" in the comments section of your online donation.  Donations to WEAMA are tax-deductible.

Here is the update I posted:

Happy Autumn!  Our family is still here in the Pacific Northwest.  Military family life is about "making plans and then making plans again and then going back to plan A or C" someone probably once said.

We are enjoying the cool weather and the transition back to school for my oldest. 

In my last post, I mentioned my volunteer professional work with creating supportive materials for L&I Pilot Project participants was taking up a significant portion of my time.  The work has continued and hope to unveil the link to my first online course, "Practitioner Perspective" at the state professional association meeting (Washington East Asian Medicine Association) on Sunday, October 22nd, at Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA. 

The resource I created is a documentation toolkit to support Practitioners involved in the WA state Workers' Comp Pilot to be successful by reviewing professional documentation standards in our field, with introduction to the return-to-work/rehab model and how Acupuncturists fit into it, and resources, with examples, on how to collect a few specific functional measures. 

There are outgoing expenses associated with creating this Resource. If you know someone, a professional, or a business that would like to donate toward this specific project, donations are accepted through Washington East Asian Medicine Association (WEAMA) at the donation page.  Caveat:  for the money to go toward the project, you must tag "for L&I project" in the comments field of your donation.  

Thank you for sharing this post!
Megan

37 Attorney Generals Push Incentives for prescription of Non-Pharm Pain Management Therapies

key words:  models of care, non-drug pain management, working as a team, research studies, funding/incentives

This September, Dennis Hoey of the Press Herald reported that there are now 37 state attorney generals that are pushing incentives to increase the use of non-pharmaceutical pain relief therapy as imperative to addressing the U.S. Opioid Crisis.

"Mills and her peers said the health care industry needs to promote the use of alternatives such as physical therapy, acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care to treat patients' chronic pain."

"Mills said health insurers need to reduce any financial incentives to prescribing addictive narcotics and begin to offer greater coverage for alternative therapies."

Update:
As of Jan 2018, there is now a more comprehensive review of this in the winter 2018 issue of Meridians: JAOM, "U.S. Attorneys General Promote Acupuncture Coverage" by Bill Reddy, Dipl.Ac (NCCAOM) of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC).  Electronic copies of Meridians are available gratis through your state acupuncture association membership or you can subscribe for e-copy or print copy through the journal's website.  

citation:
Reddy B. U.S. Attorneys General Promote Acupuncture Coverage. MJAOM. 2018; 5(1): 39-40.

Related
The White Paper:  Acupuncture's Role in Solving the Opioid Epidemic
Joint Commission Pain Management Standard is updated
More about a pilot in Vermont looking at Medicaid and acupuncture for chronic pain management 
Research from the NIH, "Acupuncture is effective, safe, and cost-effective for treating several chronic pain conditions when performed by well-trained healthcare professionals."
How to use a Validated Pain Scale in Your Clinical Care

More great resources at The Collaborative.

Joint Commission Pain Management Standard update for Greater Clarity on Recommendations to Acupuncture and other Non-Pharmacological Pain Relief Therapies

key words:  pain management, acupuncture, nonpharm pain relief therapy, working as a team, joint commission, state and federal programs, research

The new Joint Commission Pain Management Standard will be officially implemented Jan.1st, 2018 for any accredited facility.  These new standards were developed through a multi-year vigorous review process.  According to this source, the new pain management guidelines include:

1.  Facility (hospital) has a pain management leadership team which monitors performance improvement activities and is "responsible for pain management and safe opioid prescribing".

2.  Facility provides non-pharmacological pain management therapies (such as acupuncture/East Asian medicine, chiropractic, yoga, physical therapy, health psychology/MBSR, massage therapy) by qualified, licensed practitioners

3.  Facility provides staff and licensed independent practitioners (LIPs) "with educational resources and programs to improve pain assessment, pain management, and the safe use of opioid medications based on the identified needs of its patient population."

Related Story, Field-forwarding Leadership (update from Jan 2018)
Arya Nielsen, PhD, is one of the leaders in this Pain Management Standard update.  Read her story of perseverance and success in updating the Joint Commission's Pain Management Standard in the Duke University Leadership Program in Integrative Medicine newsletter (Jan 2018).

"Dr. Arya Nielsen exemplifies this type of grassroots leader, and we owe her a great debt for leading us through this important change for the fields of integrative medicine and pain management."  

The Joint Commission is the most influential organization in setting hospital practice standards in the U.S.  Read Dr. Nielsen's inspiring story.

Related blogposts:

• 2017 white paper on Acupuncture for Pain Relief and Pain Management
• More about a pilot in Vermont looking at Medicaid and acupuncture for chronic pain management 
• Research from the NIH, "Acupuncture is effective, safe, and cost-effective for treating several chronic pain conditions when performed by well-trained healthcare professionals."
• Your Pain Scale, how to use a validated tool in your patient-centered clinical care model
• 37 state Attorney Generals Support Incentives for Non-Pharm Pain Relief Therapy
• More great resources at The Collaborative.

Duke University Integrative Leadership Program notes the following related references on management of Chronic Pain with Integrative Medicine:

• The April 2017 issue of the British Medical Journal focused on the use of integrative medicine (acupuncture, mind-body systems, dietary/nutrition interventions, and herbal medicine therapy) for 3 chronic pain conditions:  neck pain, back pain, and rheumatoid arthritis.  The article discusses some mechanisms of action and efficacy studies.
• Primary Care:  Clinics in Office Practice published a special issue on Integrative Medicine (IM) with review articles about IM use in primary care settings for chronic pain and other conditions in June 2017.

Lunchtime Listen: Launching an Integrative Health Program in a Medical Center

keywords and phrases:  starting an integrative health program, wisdom-sharing, hospital sponsors, expanding your integrative healthcare program, out-patient work, inpatient programs, teamwork

Interested in starting an integrative health care clinic or program at your facility?  

Learn from those who already have.

This week's Lunchbreak Listen recommendation is from the Duke University's Integrative Leadership Program.  Doctors Chiti Prikh and Alka Gupta share wisdom from their experiences setting up and expanding an integrative healthcare program at New York-Presbyterian. Their talk is an audiovisual webinar, Launching Integrative Health and Wellbeing at NYP-Weill Cornell:  Reflections on a Three-Year Journey.

You can view the webinar below in this post or on our YouTube channel playlist.  This webinar can also be found on Duke University's Integrative Leadership Program webpage.

If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy reading the e-booklet, The Pebble in the Pond:  How Integrative Leadership Can Bring About Transformation by Adam Perlman, Bonnie Horrigan, Elizabeth Goldblatt, Victoria Maizes, and Ben Kligler.
To learn more about the Duke Integrative Leadership Program's philosophy, check out this page.

Interested in more Lunchtime Listens?  Check out our growing playlist on the Hospital Handbook Project's YouTube channel.

Related blogposts:

• Lori Knutson of the Duke University Integrative Leadership Program:  Leading Simply in a Complex system
• The Complexity of Acupuncture Research in 10 Minutes with Mel Hopper Koppleman 
• On Human Flourishing audio interview with Susan Samueli, philanthropist and IM practitioner, about creating and supporting the movement of Integrative Medicine, 20 minutes.
• Samueli's Institute series, On Human Flourishing

Metrics for Your Integrative Health Program:  The Pain Scale, DVPRS as a validated biopsychosocial tool

Was this blogpost useful?  If so, please contribute $5 or $25 today to support the creation and hosting of this community resource (website and blogposts).  

If you or your business/program would like to sponsor or co-sponsor a specific Project, such as the Webinar Series, please contact me.

Lunchtime Listen: Wayne Jonas of Samueli Institute Interviews Dr. Henry Samueli, philanthropist and engineer

Samueli Institute's "On Human Flourishing" is a series of podcasts where Wayne Jonas interviews leaders in the field of integrative health.  I recommend starting with the Interview of Henry Samueli, PhD, an engineer and philanthropist.  He and his wife founded the Samueli Institute, which did impressive work on creating thorough research reviews of Integrative Medicine therapies and recently sunsetted (December 2016).  Samueli Institute's work has positively influenced the movement of integrative medicine into mainstream U.S. medicine by increasing the foundation of evidence-based research and literature reviews and communication of this information to the federal health system and U.S. hospital systems.  Henry Samueli has also set up philanthropic support for STEM programs for children and parents.

Listen to this 28 minute podcast conversation between Wayne Jonas, MD, and Henry Samueli, PhD, in the "On Human Flourishing" podcast dated April 7th, 2016.  Available on iTunes.


Related Lunchtime Listen:
3 minute YouTube video of Wayne Jonas, MD, of Samueli Institute, on shifting U.S. culture of health to one of community health, wellness, and prevention over disease-care-only as part of this idea of "on human flourishing".  It is a complex problem from health culture to socio-economic disparities.

For More Lunchtime Listens, see our YouTube Channel, "Lunchbreak Recommendations"

• Lori Knutson of the Duke University Integrative Leadership Program:  Leading Simply in a Complex system
• Mel Explains the Complexity of Acupuncture Research in this 10 minute video.
• On Human Flourishing audio interview with Susan Samueli, philanthropist and IM practitioner, about creating and supporting the movement of Integrative Medicine, 20 minutes.

Review: The Field of Acupuncture Research in Just 10 Minutes

key words:  research literacy, acupuncture research, integrative medicine, comparative studies, comparative effectiveness research (CER), mechanistic studies (biomechanisms of acupuncture), clinical research vs. laboratory research, efficacy vs. effectiveness in clinical trials, the chasm of clinical work and effectiveness vs. research study design, placebo in acupuncture, is your control active or inert?, "placebo" as inert, acupuncture sham is active not inert


The field of acupuncture research and study design is complex; more complex than other research fields.  Complex in the way that any hands-on clinical interaction is complex from a research standpoint, not dissimilar to clinical research in the fields of chiropractic, massage, health psychology, and physical therapy.

For a great, 10 minute overview of the field of acupuncture research, check out Mel Hopper Koppleman's YouTube video.  Useful for hospital administrators, hospital program sponsors, all East Asian Medicine (acupuncture) practitioners, and the beginning researcher.  Remember, for those of you who are researchers, this is the 10 minute version.  For more in-depth learning, you may be interested in the "Researcher's Resource list",  a pdf with recommendations from the Hospital Practice Handbook community (because many good references are not books or available on Amazon).

January 2018 update:  Mel has release more videos since this.  See our January post, "Studies to Understand when you talk with Neurologists", which features Mel's video, "3 Neurological Studies".

You can see even more impressive work on reviews of East Asian Medicine research (which includes acupuncture) at the new website, Evidence-Based Acupuncture. 

Most Popular Posts of the Spring Fundraiser

Blog Roll Review
For a fun review, the following are the most popular blogposts related to the spring fundraiser:

• Integrative Medicine Philanthropic Movement into Mainstream Medicine—want to learn more?
• Fundraiser for the Project, Making Acupuncture available in Hospitals and Medical Centers
• Recovering from Surgery:  Acupuncturist part of Rehab Medicine Team
• Health and Wellness Learning with Kids
• Nutrition for Health Resources for Your Family:  Everything in Moderation
• Reflective Readings to Inspire Your Health and Wellness
• Are you in the Present Moment?  learning about mindfulness
• The Acupuncturist Occupational Code FAQs
• Integrative Medicine Leadership:  Lori Knutson’s “Leading Simply in a Complex System”, part of our “lunchtime listen” recommendations
• What Building this Resource Means for Hospitals and Integrative Medicine Practitioners with East Asian Medicine (acupuncture) Specialty
• Connections & Wisdom-sharing
• Just a few days left!
• Theo Chocolate
• Crowdfunding Campaign 2017
• Webinar Series Project
• YETI Mug
• Supporting our Hospital Administrators in our "Hospital Sponsor Favorites" Perk
• Help Build the Book
• Pediatric Pearls--one of our "lunchtime listen" recommendations series
• Nine Days Left!
• Mission:  Make Integrative Medicine (IM) Accessible
• Project:  The Hospital Practice Acupuncturist Data Survey