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BWH will offer patients access to a full array of complementary and integrative care when it opens the Osher Center for Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies at 850 Boylston St. next month. This outpatient facility will provide patients with care from a BWH team of credentialed acupuncturists, chiropractors and massage therapists along with care providers from Medicine, Neurology, Psychiatry, Rheumatology, Orthopedics, Nutrition and Physical Therapy.
“The Osher clinical model puts patients at the center of our care team where, with the guidance of our expert clinicians, they can be thoughtfully directed to access therapies to optimize their care,” said David Eisenberg, MD, director of Integrative Medicine at BWH.
The center will also serve as a research “incubator” through which access to complementary and integrative care can be evaluated for efficacy, safety and mechanisms of action. “Ultimately, we expect our patients will experience improved outcomes and an overall reduction in medical costs,” Eisenberg said. “We have the good fortune to be able to document this as the unit is hard wired to a research infrastructure.”
The Osher Center also will be a site for clinical research overseen by the HMS Osher Institute/Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies, which is also under the direction of Eisenberg. The HMS Osher Institute is leading projects that include herbal/botanical research, pain-related studies, placebo research, acupuncture, yoga, and tai-chi research and nutritional research. Research findings will be published in leading peer reviewed health and medicine journals.
For more information about patient referrals, contact Mark Cunningham at 617-384-8582 or Mark_Cunningham@hms.harvard.edu