The academic medical community is a critical partner in the scientific evaluation of complementary and alternative medical therapies. However, it does not have the clinical infrastructure nor the support to deliver a truly integrative model of healthcare, it is set up to evaluate therapies that fit solely within the existing acceptable scientific paradigm. Perhaps even more importantly, it does not have easy access to either the provider community practicing Integrative Medicine or the patient community seeking it. The academic community investigating CAM will benefit enormously from this network. This type of research will create a foundation of information from which high quality research can be designed.
Patient participation needs to be independent of the practitioner.
The academic medical world involved with CAM, with the exception of the Beth Israel Continuum Center in New York, the University of Arizona, Bastyr University Clinic, and the University of Maryland see few patients. Even more to the point it is often a stratified type of healthcare that does not translate well into real-world medical care or Integrative Medicine. Data collected will be either condition or therapy specific. Practitioners would have access to their own personal data as well as aggregate data from their medical specialty. This is health services research.