The Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (IHPC) was created following the very successful National Policy Dialogue to Advance Integrated Health Care: Finding Common Ground (NPD). The NPD, held at Georgetown University Medical School in Fall 2001, was a groundbreaking meeting called to stimulate communication and focus action on the future of integrated health care and its important role in addressing the nation's healthcare crisis. NPD participants represented over 50 stakeholder groups with an interest in or commitment to the advancement of integrated health care. They included individuals who have served in national policy positions, including formal and informal roles advising diverse federal agencies and members of Congress from both parties. NPD also included leaders in the conventional, complementary and alternative health care professions, as well as payers and industry leaders.
Over three days, they reviewed the status of existing public and private initiatives, debated what an integrated healthcare system would look like, and discussed how to achieve it through a defined national policy framework. They found substantial common ground. IHPC was created at the conclusion of the NPD to ensure that the policy agenda endorsed at the NPD would be carried out. We were incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in 2003.
The National Policy Dialogue itself was convened in response to requests from key legislators to create a group that could speak to Congress with a voice of consensus, avoiding public and divisive interdisciplinary disagreements on policy. IHPC is that consensus voice on the hill. It is interdisciplinary and non-partisan.