Hospitals today are more than their core facilities. Both Hartford and Saint Francis have centers in surrounding towns that provide multiple purposes all aimed at spreading their reach well beyond the core city they are located in. By providing services and education in outlying towns they not only create additional profit centers, but create a relationship with clients who are more likely to choose their core hospital when more serious care is required.
First Hartford and then Saint Francis Hospitals recognized in the late 1990's that Integrative Medicine was becoming popular with an increasing segment of the population. They each started small departments to explore the possibilities and aggressively marketed the fact that this showed they cared. In truth the departments were small and underfunded but they endured and proved their value. If you read through the quarterly booklets that these hospitals distribute you’ll find them heavily promoting workshops and talks on Integrative Medicine and even offering holistic services at their extended facilities. In our East of the River community Saint Francis has the largest presence with centers facilities in Glastonbury, Enfield and coming soon to Ellington.
Hartford, Saint Francis and Windham hospitals have each recently taken major steps to further incorporate Integrative Medicine. Hartford’s program has for years been unfunded by the hospital and had to find its own grant money. But recently the growing Cancer Department took Integrative Medicine under its wing and integrated it into its department. They will continue to serve the rest of the hospital but this gives them a home and some security.
Saint Francis also just announced the opening of the Center for Integrative Medicine on the hospital's main campus. The hospital has provided services in-patient throughout the institution for over 8 years, now providing over 300 encounters per month. Whether orthopedics, oncology, surgery or maternity, pain scales show significant decreases in pain and anxiety levels after an Integrative Medicine modality has taken place.
And on the east side of us don’t overlook Windham Hospital. Although a small regional hospital, they have explored and become comfortable with complementary modalities and, like Griffin Hospital in Derby, they are making significant changes to become patient centered and make use of new approaches. This approach was very profitable for Griffin, moving them from a failing regional hospital to a showplace for patient centered care.And where is ECHN? Many years ago when Rockville was a separate entity they opened the Women’s Center For Health in Vernon. With a holistically minded and experienced administrator they offered a number of complementary therapies, but beyond a little volunteer Reiki they never made it to the hospital. When Manchester and Rockville joined forces to become ECHN the Women’s Center was moved to South Windsor and still offers a few complementary services - but ECHN seems to have confined it to the Women’s Center and resists bringing it into the hospitals. Manchester looked as if it might at least try volunteer energy workers a couple of years ago, but that program didn’t last.
For Integrative Centers to get into hospitals they need a respected champion on the staff and an open minded administration. I’m not familiar enough with ECHN to know where the block is, but one or two well placed bigwigs can do it. In our previous blog we note that over the last decade one of the major trends has been the acceptance of Alternative Medicine. Too bad ECHN isn’t staying up with the trends.
To help you explore what’s available in area hospitals we have a new Hospital web page under the Health tab. Here you’ll find what area hospitals offer, the history of their programs and links to learn more. Maybe one day we won’t have to go out of our area for holistic hospital care.
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