Mission
The mission of the IHPC is to direct the national healthcare agenda toward a health-oriented, integrated system, ensuring all people access to the full range of safe and regulated conventional, complementary, and alternative healthcare professionals, therapies and products, and to the building blocks of health, including clean air and water as well as a healthy food supply.
Who We Serve
IHPC serves:
- Policymakers as a trusted consensus voice of the Integrated Health Care (IHC)/Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) communities.
- CAM and conventional integrated health care practitioners and their organizations by creating equality for all qualified health care providers/professions.
- Health care consumers by representing their interests, particularly in ensuring access to the full range of safe and effective forms of health care.
What We Believe
Integrated Health Care (IHC) is a matter of both smart policy and equity--for healthcare consumers and professionals. It is what the American people want.
We believe that integrated health care has a critical role to play in addressing the two main issues of the current US healthcare crisis--cost and quality.
Specifically we believe the US healthcare system should be reprioritized to:
- Reduce the need for expensive heroic and emergency care by giving greater attention to disease prevention and health promotion.
- Alleviate the physician shortage that leaves some people without ready access to health care through greater utilization in primary care of naturopathic and chiropractic physicians, as well as nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
We believe that Americans should have real choice about their health care, and should be able to access the full range of conventional, complementary, and alternative health care professionals, selecting those most appropriate to their conditions and preferences.
We know that Americans want integrated health care. Surveys document that Americans make more visits per year to complementary and alternative healthcare providers than to conventional medical doctors. But they don't just want access to CAM providers, they want truly integrated care, in which conventional and CAM providers work cooperatively with one another on behalf of each patient's well-being.