ACAM Integrative Medicine (IM) Blog

Free Integrative Medicine and Practice Development Webinars

ACAM member, Craig Koniver, MD, will be hosting a series of three Free Webinars about Integrative Medicine and Practice Development.

The topics will include:

-  How to create a extremely successful integrative medicine practice

-  All the nuts and bolts of running an integrative medicine practice

-  How to set up an integrative medicine practice

-  Fees to charge for labs, supplements, IVs, etc

-  How to use social media to your advantage

-   How to truly connect with your patients which is the key to bringing in revenue and creating positive change for each patient

-  And much more!

Part I will take place on Tuesday, Jan 24th at 8PM EST. Sign-up for the webinar at: http://4ac.am/xtJXEI.

Dr. Koniver completed his undergraduate work at Brown University in Rhode Island and graduated from medical school at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. His practice is Primary Plus Organic Medicine and is located in North Charleston, South Carolina. Learn more about Dr. Koniver and his practice at: www.organicmedicinenow.com

Dr. Shira Miller Giving Menopause Lecture in San Diego

ACAM board member and guest blogger Dr. Shira Miller will be giving a lecture on menopause and postmenopause at the Pacific Athletic Club in San Diego on October 1st.

Menopause causes hormone deficiencies which accelerate the aging process, make you feel old, and increase your risk of chronic diseases. Shira Miller, M.D., founder and medical director of The Integrative Center for Health & Wellness, is one of the leading national experts on menopause, postmenopause, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, and the Wiley Protocol. Her unique concierge wellness and anti-aging practice uses a cutting-edge, science-based, holistic approach to help you stay happy, healthy, and productive as you age. Come and listen to a complimentary lecture with Dr. Miller on Saturday, October 1st from 3:00-4:00pm.

Registration is required. Members register at http://www.xpiron.com/schedule/psd and nonmembers will need to register through the Social Director, Amanda Erhardt. Call 858.509.3111 ext. 243, or email aerhardt@pacsandiego.com.

 

 

Watch Dr. Jeffrey Morrison's Environmental Medicine Talk

Last weekend Southern California residents had the great pleasure of listening to Environmental Medicine expert Dr. Jeffrey Morrison speak about environmental toxins and how they affect our health. He came all the way from New York City to give a presentation free of charge at the California Integrative Hyperbarics Center in Irvine. The room was packed with individuals eager to learn how they may improve their health and quality of life through the reduction of exposures to harmful toxins. 

For everyone who was unable to make it to Irvine las weekend, here is the video recording, complete with Dr. Morrison's slides too! Enjoy!

 

ACAM Member Earns Prestigious New Position



GREEN BAY, August 15, 2011 – EuroPharma, Inc. is pleased to announce that Holly Lucille, N.D., R.N., has joined their Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Lucille is a well-known naturopathic physician, author and educator with a private practice in Los Angeles where her focus is comprehensive naturopathic medicine and individualized care.

Dr. Lucille received her doctorate at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine where she received the Daphne Blayden Award for her "commitment to naturopathic medicine." She is the past president of the California Naturopathic Doctor’s Association (CNDA) where she worked to ensure the availability of safe naturopathic health care by spearheading the lobbying effort to license naturopathic doctors in the state of California. Dr. Lucille is the recipient of the 2004 Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine Legacy Award recognizing her “contribution to the advancement and development of the field of naturopathic medicine.”

“We are extremely pleased to have Dr. Holly Lucille join our Scientific Advisory Board,” says Terry Lemerond, founder and president of EuroPharma, Inc. “She is one of the most respected naturopathic physicians in the world and brings a heartfelt passion for the individual wellness of people. We greatly appreciate her wealth of experience and guidance.”

The author of Creating and Maintaining Balance: A Woman’s Guide to Safe, Natural, Hormone Health,Dr. Lucille lectures across the country on a variety of natural health topics and frequently appears on national media programs. She is regularly quoted as an expert in both consumer and peer journals and in 2007 she was listed in Time Magazine’s Alt List as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People”.   

Dr. Lucille is on the board of directors of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians and the faculty of the Global Medicine Education Foundation, a teaching organization aimed at understanding the common threads of spirituality, ecology, culture, relationships and community inherent in all approaches to healing. She also volunteers at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, providing health education, promotion and prevention. 

EuroPharma’s scientific advisory board includes many of the world’s thought leaders in botanical medicine including: Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., Medical Director of Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers; Medicine Hunter Chris Kilham; Ajay Goel, Ph.D., Director of Epigenetics and Cancer Prevention at Baylor University Medical Center;  Decker Weiss, NMD, the nation’s first naturopathic cardiologist; and Cheryl Myers, RN, author and integrative health nurse. 

EuroPharma, Inc. offers clinically proven and effective nutritional supplements and natural medicines that improve the health of America. Terry Lemerond, founder and president of EuroPharma, is well-known for innovation, and is credited as the first to introduce glucosamine sulfate, standardized Ginkgo biloba, and the award winning natural pain product, Curamin®, to the U.S. natural products market. At EuroPharma, Our Passion is Your Health™.  For more information on EuroPharma, visit www.EuroPharmaUSA.com

ACAM ND Reaching Out to Community

The American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) is excited to support member, Dr. Nirvana, in her Orange County, California, B-12 and Homeopathic Shot Clinics.

Dr. Nirvana has administered B-12, B-Complex and other homeopathic shots at Southern California Henry's Farmers Markets since 2007.

“Part of ACAM’s mission is to educate the public on the benefits of integrative medicine. We’re pleased to be a part of Dr. Nirvana’s shot clinic and support her efforts in serving local residents,” said Michelle Schiavo, Social Impact Coordinator for ACAM.

“It’s my pleasure to work with an organization that promotes wellness and integrative medicine. ACAM’s integrity through their outreach to the community is inspiring and I’m happy to be a part of such a forward-thinking, innovative organization,” said Dr. Nirvana.

Dr. Nirvana holds her shot clinics every Monday and Wednesday at Henry's Farmers Markets (soon to be Sprouts Farmers Markets) in Costa Mesa, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, and Tustin.

About ACAM: The American College for Advancement in Medicine (ACAM) is a not-for-profit Organization dedicated to educating physicians and other health care professionals on the safe and effective application of integrative medicine. ACAM's healthcare model focuses on prevention of illness and a strive for total wellness.  ACAM is the voice of integrative medicine; our goals are to improve physician skills, knowledge and diagnostic procedures as they relate to integrative medicine; to support integrative medicine research; and to provide education on current standard of care as well as additional approaches to patient care.

About Dr. Nirvana: Dr. Nirvana is a Naturopathic Doctor who received her Doctorate at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Arizona. Her education not only included standard medical training but also teachings consisting of Medical Nutrition and Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Homeopathy, Acupuncture and Botanical Medicine. In 2007, Dr Nirvana was also the Naturopathic Doctor for ChivasUSA Major League Soccer Team. Visit her website at: www.drnirvana.com.

ACAM Member Releases New Book

  

ACAM member and featured blogger Andrea Purcell, ND has recently released Feed Your Cells! 7 Ways to Make Health Food Fast, Easy and Gluten-Free! 

The book is full of convenient health recipes designed for busy people on the go who understand that how we feel is directly related to what we eat.

What you'll learn:

• Eating healthy does not have to be complicated.
• Food preparation does not have to be time consuming.
• Flavor and taste do not have to be sacrifiiced through healthy eating.
• Find out how simple it is to prepare nutritious food that can be used for multiple meals.
• Efficient cooking: how to make the most of your time in the kitchen.
• Health recipes for people on the go.

AND...

As you help yourself, you help others! 20% of the profits from the sale of this book go to www.supportconnection.org to women with breast and ovarian cancer.

Purchase the book at Dr. Purcell's website: www.AskDrPurcell.com.

5 Questions to Ask A Potential Practice Website Vendor

 

By: Drew McGray
Director, Marketing 

As healthcare continues to be transformed by technology; refreshing or completely re-architecting your practice's website might be on your radar. Unless you have an in-house marketing team, you will probably be outsourcing your website design and production to a third party. How do you know who is going to deliver the most return on your investment? Here are five question to ask any potential vendor. 

1.) Have you done this before? A provider that has experience in producing web properties for small business is probably a good fit. However, you want to be sure you are not their "guinea pig" and that they have experience in crafting websites that mesh well with your practice. 

2.) What tools will be included for my patients?  You want your website to be able to meet several objectives in order to make it relevant to your patient base. These objectives are:

• Communicate information about your services offered and who you are. 
• Secure your practice's contact information, generate driving directions and provide hours of operation. 
• Allow people to contact your front office easily via web form.

Optionally you can give patients the ability to:

• Book appointments online
• Confirm appointments online
• Cancel appointments online
• Order supplements from your website 

There are numerous companies that provide these optional tools that will transform your website from an information-only page to an interactive website. 

3.) I have a change. How do I go about making edits? You don't want to have to call your web designer to make edits to your site and you want the ability to update information instantly. For this reason, its important you select a provider who can implement a Content Management System as opposed to simply building you practice a website. A CMS allows you to edit various parts of your website without having to know any code or programming language.  It's basically as simple as editing a Word document and pushing "publish." In the case of CMS, simple is best. Ask your perspective web designer to demo a few systems for you. 

4.) Can you work with my budget? A lot pricing in the website production industry is arbitrary. I recommend you be upfront with your website budget and have the provider quote products and services in that budget.  Reject any supplementary marketing services they may offer (SEO / SEM) and focus on building a great web property. 

5.) What sort of user engagement can I expect from the site? If your potential provider even flinches at this question, drop them.  A good website developer knows that the focus of any website is on the visitor. They should answer this question with lots of good information related to engagement, conversion and functionality. If they do, they are probably worthy of further consideration. 

Providers to consider: 

• Solution21 
• VitalElement

 

Questions? Want us to help you? Our member-services team will be glad to provide you with a referral or review a proposal. Send to membership@acam.org

 

Dr. Jeffrey Morrison Speaking in Irvine, California

Like the popular cleanses on the market, Cleanse Your Body, Clear Your Mind, will help you lose weight and get a glow, but Dr. Morrison's book goes an important step beyond that -- it explains the science of what specific toxins are doing to your body, creates a medically prescribed elimination detox diet to address specific health issues and prevent disease, as well as includes advice for ridding really scary toxins from your home and life.

Our bodies have become repositories for the thousands of compounds which have invaded our air, water, and food supply. Dr. Morrison shows you exactly how these insidious chemicals are breaking down your natural detoxification systems and explains the latest scientific data that links toxins to specific illnesses. But most importantly, he details a plan for how to get rid of them.

Dr. Morrison is an award-winning physician focusing on environmental medicine. His bustling private practice, The Morrison Center, opened in 2002. He also serves as Nutrition Consultant for Equinox Fitness Clubs. Dr. Morrison has appeared on PBS, Discovery Health, and in the pages of Allure, Cosmopolitan, Fitness, Parade and Men's Journal, among others.

Saturday, August 13th, 2011
10:00 am- 11:30 am
Refreshments will be served

Free lecture and book signing sponsored by:

California Integrative Hyperbaric Center
Toll Free: (877) 244-2188 
Tel: (949) 428-8878

 

Ditch Your Corporate Logo in Favor of Using a Brand Persona for Your Twitter Avatar.

Create a brand persona and connect with your followers on a more personal level.  

By: Drew McGray
Director, Marketing

Social Media has evolved from a marketing strategy to a business strategy.  It’s no longer a question that businesses, including health care systems, need to have a solid social media strategy in place.   Smart business know that using social media to sell products and services is amateur and really doesn’t work. Sourcing, cultivating and deepening relationships with customers, patients, guests, donors, etc is what social media does best.

If your brand isn’t a well-known marketing icon, (Apple, Starbucks, CocaCola, etc) consider dropping your company logo as your Twitter avatar in favor of  photo of someone who represents your brand persona.  This is especially relevant to businesses that are relationship-based; i.e. healthcare systems, physician offices, etc.  In order to do this you’ll need to create a basic brand persona that represents your social media audience.

What is a social media brand persona?
A brand persona is a fictional representation of your core social media audience.  It has a name (i.e. Jack or Helen), it’s crafted through analytics and research and it gives your key stakeholders a clear picture of who your primary social media audience is.  Dr. Pamela Rutledge, Director of the Media Psychology Research Center and a co-founder of A Think Lab, says, “Personas are a representative behavior and activity profile for a customer base.  A persona is a user archetype to help guide decisions about features, interaction and design.”

To clarify, personas are not market segments; they are fictional characters generated by analytics and insight.

What are the benefits of having a persona?
By developing a brand persona you can expect to generate more meaningful social media content because your efforts will be better targeted to your audience, with less waste and content debate.  You’ll be connecting on a deeper level with your constituents and ultimately, generating more meaningful interactions.

Here’s an example:

April Collins, MD is a 39 year-old female physician in Santa Monica, California. She practices at Cedars Sinai Medical Center as a family physician. Dr. Collins is also a mother, health and fitness enthusiast, and enjoys yoga, traveling and cooking.  She is passionate about helping people get well and knows from experience that many diseases are preventable and are the result of poor diet and lifestyle. Dr. Collins is tech-savvy and uses the Internet to acquire health resources and content. She collects everything from healthy recipes to continuing medical education credits online. She has a high income level and accesses the Internet mostly from her office or her mobile device.
 

 
Dr. Collins is not a real person, but there are individuals that share her interests who use our Website (www.acam.org).  The Dr. Collins persona is the result of us researching our core users, aggregating various feedback from our Twitter, Facebook and blog comments, and tying this information together to form a clear picture of what our core user base looks like, (literally).

By understanding Dr. Collins, and more specifically, what she represents, a social media coordinator is able to generate better social content that is more relevant to a brand’s core audience.

Creating a basic persona is easy and probably one of the best returns on investments for your time.  Here are the steps to take:

Step 1.) Gather demographic information

• Go to Quantcast at www.quantcast.com and search your Website's URL. You’ll get a free report about your core users, where they come from, how old they are, etc. You can also visit alexa.com and obtain similar information. Put this information into a spreadsheet or word document, something you can use to aggregate the information.

Step 2.) Aggregate existing profiles of people who interact with you
Access this spreadsheet and save a local copy to your computer. Here’s the URL:

http://4ac.am/audiencepersona


To save a local copy, click “File > download as” in the light-blue toolbar.   This document will help you aggregate the various content generated by people who are talking about your brand online. To get this information, visit the sites below and drop the information into the spreadsheet.

• BlogPulse http://www.blogpulse.com/search.html#advanced and search keywords related to your mission. For example: “integrative medicine.” Look at the people who comment on posts and see who the majority of the most active users are.  Do they have any similarities to the data obtained from Quantcast? Try these exercises on Google Blog search: http://blogsearch.google.com

• BoardReader - www.boardreader.com

• Search Twitter - again search keywords related to your mission. Look at the people who are advocates, what sort of demographic features do they have in common? What do they nay-sayers look like?  

• If you have a Facebook “Fan” page, complete this exercise for your page as well.  

Step 3.) Involve others (dependent on your organizational size)
If you happen to have market research data, why not use this as well?  Drop in whatever data you have into your spreadsheet.  

Step 4.) Tie it all together
Using the data you collected, write a narrative (such as the Dr. Collins example) that exemplifies the demographic data you collected.  Now, find a nice stock-photo that matches your persona.  Make sure you actually buy the photo, don’t use Google Images. Make sure its royalty-free and not copyrighted We recommend Veer Creative at www.veer.com

By using your persona’s stock photo as your Twitter avatar, your followers will see a representation of your social media strategy. You can even get fancy and incorporate your logo in the photo.  

Here’s what we have done at ACAM to give our Twitter avatar a more personalized voice:


In order to personalize your Tweets,  replace your Twitter Avatar with your new stock photo and begin targeting your content with your brand persona in mind.  Creating a social media audience persona will streamline your social media efforts, reduce debate about content to use, and allow you to connect with your followers on a more personal level. 

Leave a comment below if you wish to ask a question or provide feedback. 

 

Tips for Practice Marketing - Grow your patient counts!

Author:
Drew McGray
Director, Marketing - ACAM 

If you're in private practice, you are more than just a physician, you are a business owner. Any good business needs a strong marketing department to generate interest and subsequently, customers (patients). Here are some great tips for marketing your practice. 

A thousand words -. As the physician, you are the face and voice of your business. As such, photos are an important tool in communicating to potential patients. Hire a photographer to capture the vibe of your clinic, including photos of you, your key staff, and your practice. Good photos can make the difference between someone choosing your practice over the next one. 

Become a local expert - There is great demand for information related to health and wellness and the public views information from Physicians as "the gold standard."  Some of our members host seminars at health food stores or offer guest lectures at places like Whole Foods Markets.  Most health food stores have a community events coordinator who will work with you to schedule a lecture or talk, etc. Simply look up your local store online and contact them.  You can give a presentation, host a Q&A session, or discuss new treatment options and then invite guests to visit you for further analysis. Be sure to bring brochures and business cards. 

Get social - Social media has transformed the way businesses (including medical practices) interact with the public.  When a member of ACAM's staff tweeted her frustration with a health insurance provider's lack of acceptance of integrative therapies, they responded directly  to her through Twitter.  Social media allows the public to gain greater insight into who you are and what you're all about.  For more information, read our whitepaper on marketing your practice with Social media. 

Blog it - A blog is different from a Website. A blog is an online journal...of information.  It's updated regulary to keep it fresh.  It's much more simple to blog than it is to make webpages. You can even select a service that will let you Email posts directly to your blog. I recommend every physician in the integrative medicine industry have a blog. Again, patients are craving information that you have, releasing it at a sustained pace, though blogging, can increase your credibility and improve your image as a local expert. Be sure to link your blog to your Website and vice versa to improve your ranking on Google. 

Here are some examples of Physicians with great blogs:

• Dr. Gina Nick, NMD, PhD - http://blog.drgina.com/tag/dr-gina-nick-cushman/
• Joel Lopez, MD, CNS - http://drjlo.com/
• John Gannage, MD - http://www.integrative-medicine.ca/
• Matt Angove, ND, NMD - http://drwholeness.com/
• Shira Miller, MD - http://shiramillermd.com/blog

News You Can Use - Does your practice offer a newsletter? Newsletters are great for keeping your patients connected to their health (and your practice!) You can send out recipes for healthy meals, nutrition advice, a summary of your accomplishments, a staff profile, anything really.  Newsletters allow you to communicate to your patients when they aren't in the office, enhancing loyalty to you and your practice.  You can save money by making your newsletter an eNewsletter. Visit MobileStorm or ConstantContact to learn more. 

The Generation Gap - Technology has and will continue to transform lives on a daily basis. Some segments of the population adopt technology at a different pace than others and it's important to address the communication preferences of all your patients.  For example, many practices now offer TXT messages for appointment confirmations as opposed to a phone call. Services like My Patient Scheduler will automatically TXT your patients, reminding them of appointments, etc. Your new patient intake form should collect communication preferences; e.g., "How do you prefer to be reminded of appointments?" Phone, TXT, Email? 

Everything Communicates - Remember, everything from how your staff answers the phone, your brochures and pamphlets, to the colors of your consultation room, speak to patients.  Invite someone you know to go through the steps of becoming a patient and then have them provide honest feedback to you. Use the feedback to improve your practice and watch your patient counts improve. 

Following these simple tips will improve your exposure as a physician and will foster more meaningful relationships between your practice and your patients.  You'll realize more referrals from existing patients and increase your new patient counts by addressing the service needs of multiple generations, providing ample information through blogging and giving your practice a personality through social media and images.