All You Need to Know About Integrated Care

“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”~ Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

The way how we take care of our bodies, what we eat, or even our daily choices directly or indirectly have effects on our health. This is something that a lot of people fail to realize. In as much as there have been a lot of recent discoveries and modern developments in the field of medicine, the body has natural healing capacities, not to mention stressing the importance of adopting healthy choices for better health. We will explain below the difference between integrative care and integrated care.

What is Integrated Care?

Integrative care focuses on healing modalities, approaches, and methods. What about integrated care? Integrated care dwells more on the healthcare system. Under this system, it is expected that the different parts that comprise a whole work well together. Individuals work as a team and they have designated roles where they deliver what is being expected with efficiency.

In the same way, as methods are improved in order to boost efficiency in manufacturing, it is not so different with healthcare systems. Now, integrated systems are also being applied to be able to provide quality healthcare services. With integrated system, team members know clearly what their roles are and what is expected from them. They can communicate effectively and they know how to work with each other.

What is Integrative Care?

Perhaps you have heard about integrative healthcare. Is it really different from the mainstream? Integrative care combines both conventional and non-traditional healing modalities to provide better diagnosis and treatment. When complementary and alternative medicines are used in the mainstream, it is known as integrative. Nowadays, healthcare professionals are trained to use a wide range of techniques and methods that are not part of the mainstream. By providing integrative care, health professionals are able to give effective treatment.

What modalities and areas of practice will you find non-conventional treatment? Here are a few: Naturopathic Medicine, Acupuncture, Yoga, Holistic Nutrition.

At Pillars of Wellness Burlington, patients are given access to different treatment options. The integrative care provided is aimed at ensuring that the patient is given quality care with combining both methods that are proved to be equally effective with different medical conditions.

Facts About Integrative Care

• It combines different areas of medicine based on a holistic approach.
• Integrative medicine empowers and educates individuals to take care of their health.
• With integrative care, it makes of not just the best scientific medicine as well as understanding the nature of the medical condition.
• It features care individualization and a culture of wellness.
• There is a partnership between the patient and the healthcare provider.

Difference Between Integrated and Integrative Care

At first glance, you might easily get confused between integrated and integrative. But they are actually different. Integrated healthcare is focused more on the system, how things are being done by healthcare professionals, and the use of efficient techniques to further improve delivery of healthcare services. Integrated healthcare aims to provide an effective system that will meet the varying needs of patients. Integrative care focuses more on the specific healing techniques and modalities that are used to provide healing and cure.

Benefits of Integrative Care

By making use of old-age wisdom and modern techniques, patients are given more treatment options that can give them the best results. Integrative care offers several benefits which include the following:

• It focuses on prevention.
• One of the main focuses of integrative care is to maximize health and speed of recovery. The body has its own healing capacity and by focusing on having a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle, you can actually prevent diseases and illnesses.
• It provides individualized care.
• Every patient varies when it comes to their healthcare needs. Integrative care aims to provide personalized care. Health professionals practicing integrative medicine take the time to carefully and individually examine the different components that affect not just the physical health of the patient but the emotional and physiological aspect.
• Integrative care is based on collaboration.
• When a patient seeks treatment, there should be trust and good relationship knowing that the health practitioner will only want what is best for the patient. By having an honest collaboration that is based on mutual respect, the health practitioner understands what the patients need and can provide better treatment. Patients can easily work with healthcare professionals towards achieving their health goals.
• Integrative care uses a holistic approach.
• When it comes to overall health, there will be different factors that can affect one’s well-being. By having a holistic approach, the focus is not on the cure only. It also tackles the underlying causes like the lifestyle choices, environment, emotional well-being.
• It can address chronic issues.

Have you ever experienced a medical condition that keeps on recurring? Here is the thing, when a person gets sick, the logical response is to go to a doctor and take medicine. This may give immediate relief. However, if the problem is not addressed the right way, it will recur over and over again.

By determining the underlying causes, patients are educated and even empowered to take part in the process. When individuals know that their choices and actions affect their overall health, they are more aware of the things that they do. In the long term, chronic issues are addressed.

What to Expect

Patients who want to receive integrative medicine does not have to worry about its downsides. When you are given more options along with your health problem being dissected using a more effective approach, this translates to you having access to much better treatment options.

Integrative medicine is not too different from conventional medicine. What this term means is that it uses a different approach that uses effective and proven medical practices to provide better care. It combines complementary and alternative medicine which means that doctors get to have a diverse range of approaches to help their patients achieve their health goals.

When receiving integrative care, it is just natural to have doubts and questions especially when you are not so familiar with it. Your health practitioner should be able to explain everything you need to know.

When you schedule an appointment, you can always have the opportunity to ask questions and get to know more about the treatment options that are available. This allows you to weigh your choices. Your health practitioner will be able to work with you in such a way that you can address your health concerns and be able to find a cure.

Why is Integrative Care Important?

In a research study conducted by McKinsey and Company published in March 2015, they found out that successful integrated-care programs have significantly reduce hospitalization rate from 25% to 30%. Patients get to have a wide range of benefits when they receive integrative care. Nowadays, most people focus on just getting instant relief which is really not the proper way of addressing health issues.

Some may have doubts about certain healing modalities that are not part of the mainstream. These healing techniques have been used for ages. Even when the healthcare system was still not fully developed, health practitioners have been using these healing modalities for many years. They use manual techniques, herbs, and acupuncture to name a few to provide relief and cure.

Various studies would show how effective they are in improving the over-all health of people and when these non-conventional methods are proven to be effective, there is no reason why they should not be included in the mainstream. Integrative care can help patients have effective treatment without having to worry about adverse side effects.

What Integrative Care Means for Healthcare Providers?

By finding means and ways to make things a whole lot more efficient, patients can expect better and quality healthcare services. With integrative care, they take part in discovering the importance of doing the right choices for prevention and ultimately, have better health. For healthcare service providers, they combine the use of ancient and modern healing practices. Medical professionals are able to use various methods to provide effective and quality personalized care to patients.

If you are looking for an integrative care service provider in Burlington, please feel free to call us 905-637-4000