Our health care system is broken. Physicians are disenchanted; patients are dissatisfied with treatment outcomes; employers can’t continue to absorb double-digit increases in health insurance premiums; and despite spending $1 trillion per year on health care, the U.S. ranks 37th in quality of health outcomes.

• Today’s healthcare providers are not adequately trained to manage the increasing burden of complex, chronic disease. Effective prevention of chronic illnesses in the context of new knowledge of genomics and proteomics requires understanding individual genetic vulnerabilities (20-30% of chronic disease risk) and the effect of lifestyle upon those individual variations (70-80% of the risk).

• Physician education, training and reimbursement are focused on treatment of disease using drugs and surgery rather than comprehensive patient-centered treatments focused on the individual.

• The gap between emerging research in basic sciences and integration into clinical practice is enormous – as much as 50 years, particularly in the area of complex, chronic illness.

• Physicians highly trained in standard diagnosis and treatment (drugs, surgery, radiation) are not well qualified to apply interventions such as nutrition, diet, exercise and other lifestyle changes to help patients minimize their risk of suffering from one or more of the major chronic diseases in America (heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, mental illness, cancer), or to ameliorate suffering from already established chronic illnesses.

What does it take to really change how physicians practice?

Inspiration is step #1.
Information is step #2.

But real change – integration, step #3, – doesn’t happen until physicians not only feel inspired and informed, but also know where to find and how to access trusted colleagues who have already transformed their practices.

The Institute for Functional Medicine excels at inspiration and information. We are also determined to expand and enhance our educational program and activities to provide the resources and access practitioners need, day in and day out, to take that third step – integrating functional medicine approaches into their practices.

To make attainable the kind of change we envision, for many more practitioners than we can reach with the resources we have today, we need your help. Your support will enable IFM to provide a learning community – grounded in the premier educational experiences IFM is known for, and encompassing easy access to advice, consultation and assistance, contact with peers and mentors, and experiences of ongoing inspiration and information from trusted colleagues. These are the elements that will enable practitioners to act, to integrate the new knowledge into their everyday practice routines.