UW Health Integrative Medicine has changed its name to Integrative Health. The renaming is in alignment with name changes already in place at the national level.
In December 2014, the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) announced that it was changing its name to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Integrative Health is also used in federal legislation, such as the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act which was signed into law in summer 2016 and mandates that the Veterans Health Administration offer complementary and integrative health education and services to veterans nationwide.
Additionally, Health has a different connotation for people than Medicine. The word medicine is now more likely to be associated with interventions, or disease management, rather than healthy lifestyles and prevention, which are cornerstones of Integrative Health.
Integrative Health focuses on health and healing. It honors what matters most to a person and their reasons for wanting to be healthy. It includes everything about a person–body, mind, spirit, lifestyle, and their connections with other people and their surroundings. It emphasizes healing relationships and uses both standard medical approaches and complementary ones.
For more information on Integrative Health clinical services, visit uwhealth.org/integrativehealth. For information on Integrative Health at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, visit fammed.wisc.edu/integrative.
Published: January 2017