Quality, safety and costs of integrative medicine

In Europe, the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has increased markedly over the last few years. However, evidence for the effectiveness of most CAM methods, with the exception of the treatment for some conditions, is currently insufficient. Nevertheless, the growing CAM market has an important impact on patient treatment options, on the alternatives offered by providers, and on health insurance company decisions. In order to provide patients with the best care possible, a constructive dialogue between conventional and complementary medicine is both necessary and desirable. High-quality patient care should be based on efficacy, effectiveness and safety, and could result in an integrative treatment combining both conventional medicine and CAM. Safety is an important issue, and more large-scale, systematic evaluations are needed. For a combination of CAM with conventional medicine, more knowledge about treatment interactions is necessary. Some quality aspects could be addressed through targeted research projects. However, for more practice-related aspects, quality management systems should be implemented. Quality management could be an effective tool to ensure a safe and effective treatment for the patients. It also has the potential to increase efficiency by optimizing the treatment processes. For political and health insurance company decisions, the economic aspects of health care play an ever increasing role and are producing a number of cost-effectiveness analyses of CAM.

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