Acupuncture News
News Archive
8-8-04
Alternative Therapies May Aid Infertility
ABC NEWS / 08-08-04
By REED ABELSON with PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
SAVANNAH, Ga. Memorial Health University Medical Center has ambitious goals for itself, and executives here hope Deepak Chopra can help achieve them. In a bid to become a regional leader in health care by combining traditional and alternative medicine, the hospital has joined with Dr. Chopra, the best-selling author and holistic health guru, to create a center where patients and Savannah residents can come for yoga, meditation or a treatment called Shirodhara in which warm herbalized sesame oil is dripped languorously onto their foreheads.
The embrace of mantras and massage is not limited to Memorial. In March of last year, St. Joseph's/Candler, Memorial's only rival in Savannah, opened a Center for Wellbeing, where people can take yoga classes and learn about aromatherapy. And in May, St. Joseph's will introduce a program affiliated with the Mind/Body Medical Institute, founded by Herbert Benson, the Harvard physician who has been at the forefront of advocating the health benefits of reducing stress.
Hospitals in search of paying patients and a competitive edge are increasingly offering their patients some form of alternative medicine. The number of hospitals offering alternative therapies nearly doubled from 1998 to 2000, according to a survey by the American Hospital Association, to 15.5 percent of all hospitals, and the association says hospitals of all sizes are continuing to open alternative or complementary medicine centers where patients or local residents can drop in for a few hours for treatments.
With a market that has been estimated at around $27 billion and affluent customers who generally pay full price for these services up front, hospitals are eager to try alternative medicine. Many see their forays as an extension of their mission, but "it is the money that has drawn the interest," said John Weeks, who helped start a foundation to foster integration between conventional and complementary medicine.
The programs are offered by community hospitals as well as academic medical centers like Beth Israel Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Duke and Stanford, and they range from relaxation therapies and acupuncture, often given to patients with serious illness, to treatments more commonly found in spas.
At First Health Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., patients can take advantage of polarity therapy, an hourlong session of hands being placed on the body to unblock energy. In Grand Rapids, Mich., St. Mary's Mercy Medical Center offers everything from biofeedback to Chinese face-lifting, a technique that uses acupressure to help get rid of wrinkles and ease headaches.
Many hospitals, however, resist describing what they do as alternative. "The Mind/Body Medical Institute offers a very strong mainstream program," said Steven Klein, chief operating officer of Boca Raton Community Hospital in Florida, one of nine that have affiliated themselves with Dr. Benson's program. The hospital is participating in a Medicare research program to evaluate its lifestyle-modification therapy in helping treat cardiovascular disease.
Still, some experts question whether hospitals should be in such a rush to embrace yoga and massage therapies. Dr. Joseph J. Fins, a medical ethicist at the New York Weill Cornell Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, argues that while hospitals should have more of a healing persona, they need to avoid lending an imprimatur of clinical effectiveness to practices that are more in the spiritual realm.
"Every effort should be made to make the hospital more hospitable," he said. "But this kind of marketing raises questions. It's what Enron Field did to the Astrodome."
So far, contrary to expectations, many hospitals have discovered that breaking even, let alone profiting, from alternative treatment centers can be difficult. "The assumption of lots of the hospitals getting into this that there would be easy money has proved false," said Mr. Weeks, who surveyed 27 centers last year and found many struggling. Some, like a Phoenix center created by Catholic Healthcare West, have closed.
Still, Memorial has high hopes for its center. Like Savannah itself, Memorial aims to be a destination on the Eastern Seaboard, drawing tourists and affluent retirees from the region.
Much of what Dr. Chopra, an endocrinologist by training and a former chief of staff at Boston Regional Medical Center, advocates, including meditation and stress reduction, massage, exercise and a healthy diet, has become relatively mainstream. And he boasts followers from the late George Harrison to Demi Moore and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. But some practices he has explored, including one he calls remote healing, the sending of therapeutic prayers to someone far away, are considered "far out" even by Dr. Chopra's own admission.
"It's a leap of faith," said Robert Colvin, Memorial's chief executive. "Yes, the Chopra name is a little sensational. But I think health care needs improvement in terms of the way we treat people."
By affiliating with Dr. Chopra, the center is also capitalizing on perhaps the best-known name in alternative medicine. "What Dr. Chopra gives us is immediate brand," said Scott Regan, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning. But, he said, "the Chopra name brings instant credibility or lack thereof, depending on which side you're on."
Memorial expects to invest about $250,000 in the center for the first three years, including licensing Dr. Chopra's name and training about a dozen staff members in his methods. "We're not anticipating it being a large revenue source," Mr. Colvin said.
The new center, a suite of rooms furnished with dark draperies, greenery and scented candles in the hospital's new rehabilitation institute, is modeled on the Chopra Center for Well-Being in La Jolla, Calif. Most of the clients there are middle-aged women seeking what the center's literature calls "healing and transformation."
Mr. Colvin is unapologetic about the fact that at least some of Memorial's patients will not be able to afford the services, since most treatments will not be covered by insurance. "Can we give everything to everyone?" he asked, pointing out that Memorial provides $20 million to $30 million annually in charity care.
Mr. Colvin said the hospital would not embrace all of Dr. Chopra's teachings. "We're trying to temper it a bit," he said. "We would not make claims to hospital patients that massage releases toxins. What it is is something that makes people feel better. We don't make claims we have trouble scientifically validating."
But the hospital's own marketing materials suggest otherwise. In a handout for prospective clients, one massage is described as something that loosens and mobilizes toxins and enhances immunity. When asked about the discrepancy, Mr. Colvin said massage therapy "is a gray area."
For their part, officials at the Chopra Center in La Jolla view the decision to be a partner with Memorial as a natural extension of their work. "Hospitals want more well-being and spas want to deal with health enhancement," said Dr. David Simon, the center's medical director. "We're very well-positioned to cover the whole spectrum."
In fact, Dr. Chopra's empire is expanding in other directions at the same time. He is completing the terms of a deal to move the center he founded in 1996 to La Costa Resort and Spa, the storied watering hole of Gerald R. Ford and Richard M. Nixon and a home of world championship golf. The offerings at La Costa will include Golf for Enlightenment a course in which breathing techniques, yoga and golf-specific meditation are used to help unblock participants' inner Tiger.
Dr. Chopra may even alight in Manhattan: the Chopra Center recently signed a partnership agreement with Hampshire Hotels and Resorts to bring a Chopra Center to the Lamb's Club, a $35 million hotel being developed on West 44th Street. A Chopra center at Bush Hall, Beatrix Potter's former summer residence in Hertfordshire, England, is also under consideration, potentially giving guests the opportunity to meditate before running off to shoot partridge and pheasant.
"For 10 years, people have been saying that I must exploit the Chopra brand, that I'm a brand," Dr. Chopra said. "I don't like that, so I've resisted it. But the fact is, yes, I'm a brand."
Whatever the medical merits of hospitals' alternative treatment centers, hospital executives believe that they meet a real need at least for something that makes patients feel better. According to J. P. Saleeby, a holistic physician who practices here, "Whether this type of medicine will be accepted in this town on such a large scale remains to be seen, but it boils down to competition and marketing strategies."
