​This might be the most powerful podcast we have ever recorded​. We hear from Functional Medicine Dr. Ben Edwards from Lubbock, Texas along with his employer, Doug Allen. Not only does Dr. Edwards have a powerful story about his journey to Functional Medicine, but his current employer Doug Allen's incredible story of how he has added value to his employees by engaging them with various forms of integrative medicine, from chiropractic to nutrition to a full blown Functional Medicine clinic in his factory.​

In this podcast you will learn​

• Dr. Edwards and Doug's incredible story and it's potential to change medicine
• The impact on productivity and work site accidents of engaging workers in proactive medicine
• The impact on all the stakeholders of innovating in corporate wellness

Click the link below to visit his website!​

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Last week on the podcast we shared the epic history that took integrative medicine from quackery to the future of chronic disease management. One of the major recent victories, among many achieved by the Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), was the non-discrimination clause (Section 2706) in the Affordable Care Act that should have opened integrative medicine to the masses through their insurance.

We say ‘should have’ as the insurance companies have generally been out of compliance with that directive. The IHPC has come up with a plan (and a website) to fight this, called CoverMyCare.org, with the goal of forcing insurance companies to be compliant with the ACA.

We welcome to the podcast IHPC Executive Director Alyssa Worstel and board member Susan Haeger as they share the success of the IHPC in getting the wording into the ACA, and how our new brand of health professionals, as transformative community leaders, can work together to enforce compliance with this law and take integrative medicine to it’s rightful place in medicine, primary care.

What you will learn in this podcast:

• How the IHPC came to being and how it supports its 400k license integrative health professionals
• What the Section 2706 non discrimination provision of ACA should have done
• How you can get involved to help force insurance companies into compliance

Throughout the year our two co-Founders, James Maskell and Gabe Hoffman, take the opportunity to share with our community, the “State of the Evolution” address on our Evolution of Medicine Podcast, that gives a run down of the last few months and some of the plans for the months ahead.

Even by our standards, this last 6 months has been incredibly busy, including, but not limited to

• Three Functional Forums in collaboration with the Institute for Functional Medicine
• The second “Evolution of Medicine Summit” including the 7 Hour Practice Hack-A-Thon
• The launch of the first affordable alternative to health insurance, Liberty Direct
• The Evolution of Medicine Film Festival
• The launch of the first airborne probiotic cleaning system, Airbiotics

In this episode we discuss all of these events, and more, and share our appreciation for our team, our community and give some hints as to our intentions and goals for the year ahead.

Listen in to hear all of the above and more, including some funny stories and key emerging characters in the Evolution of Medicine

What you will learn from this podcast:

• The impact of the IFM collaboration on our business and outlook
• The hilarious back story of the hack-a-thon translocation
• Our recommendation for the best holiday gift of 2015

One of the basics premises in Functional Medicine is systems biology. This helps providers and patients to look at the body for what it is: a complex, interconnected system. But complex medicine doesn't have to be complicated, and we are excited to feature speakers who make it easy for doctors to understand this transition from reductionism to complexity.

Dr. Bill Sutherland is a fascinating Canadian doctor whose book "Grand Rounds: Healing Wisdom for a Complex World" caught our attention at the Evolution of Medicine. In this podcast he shares with us his incredible journey from jazz to medicine, through family, martial arts, world travel and depression.

What you will learn in this podcast:

• Why we have to treat complex things in a complex way
• Different ways to address complex situations from ADD to Cancer
• The greater context of the role of the physician in creating health

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Over 70% of medical decisions start with a blood draw, and that makes it arguably the most important factor for the future of precision medicine. But how efficient is lab testing? Especially the use of specialty labs?

Throughout this series, we are looking at health technologies that have the potential to massively increase the efficiency of functional, integrative, and precision medicine. 

In this episode we interview Dr. Shaiv Kapadia, a practicing cardiologist and Chief Medical Officer of IGGBO, which has been described as the 'Uber for Phlebotomists'. With one in three blood draws never completed, this technology is helping solve a huge bottleneck in healthcare.

What you will learn in this podcast:

• Why 1/3 of blood draws aren't completed and what problems this leads to for their health
• How IGGBO democratizes access to patient for specialized lab tests
• Why improving the 'compliance' of blood draws is a key factor in driving behavior change

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Every practitioner doing integrative, functional, holistic or naturopathic medicine (what we like to call "Root Cause Resolution") make some sort of dietary recommendations for their client as diet is a major cause of chronic disease and a modifiable part of health.

Unlike taking supplements of drugs, food habits go beyond "remembering to take things" but include organization, time management, shopping habits and more. Some providers are using health coaches, but there are emerging technologies that can scale the potential impact of providers at even lower cost.

Enter BodySite and their CEO John Cummings, a technology to empower patients with diet and lifestyle changes between office visits.

What you will learn in this podcast

• Why behavior change is tougher for food than lifestyle or supplements
• How to create more touch points for patients between visits
• The way BodySite scales this process to deliver massive efficiency gains

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Throughout this series we have been looking at a new paradigm of patient compliance, one focused on empowering patients towards their best heath. Technologies are arriving that not only create scale, but also reduce overhead.

One of the biggest truths right now is that the demand for Functional Medicine is out stripping the supply and there are many patients that are not within 25 miles of an effective provider.

Telemedicine is a technology that is changing g the game for Functional practices making it easier for them to serve patients, business and groups. In this podcast we hear from Andy O'Hara, CEO of Chiron telemedicine, and look at the role telemedicine can play in scaling functional medicine.

What you will learn

• The most important value proposition of telemedicine
• What doctors doing phone follow ups are missing out on
• How the right telemedicine platform can help you create a great user experience with low overhead

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Earlier in the year we created a series of four podcast document on the key transitions that we see are needed in the paradigm shift medicine is undergoing to get on top of chronic disease.

One of these key transitions is the shift from compliance, a patriarchal concept where the patient plays a passive role in their health, to empowerment, where the patient is an active participant.

Catalyzing this shift are technologies that help to automate and scale the way in which we engage and empower patients. In this first part of the second half of this series we speak to Dr. Priya Kamani and MD turned technologist who is equally passionate about this paradigm shift and has designed a technology to visualize and automate key parts of the functional medicine intake process.

In this podcast you will learn

• The "4 Key Factors to Empowerment" Dr Kamani learned from her previous company
• How LivingMatrix radically increases patient engagement and adherence
• How LivingMatrix can form the backbone of a system to track outcomes and prove Functional Medicine

To find out more please book a demo

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To warm up for next week's Evolution of Medicine Summit, this week on the podcast we connect with Alliance for Natural Health's Executive Director Gretchen DuBeau.

Those people in the USA that choose to live a healthy lifestyle, working actively to prevent and / or reverse chronic disease can sometimes take for granted the freedom to do so. We only have to look at Europe to see that this is not a given, and fortunately we have organizations like ANH working on our behalf to preserve our freedom of health choice.

In order to bring about the changes we would like to see in medicine, freedom of choice is a bedrock, but we need to continue to work together on retaining those freedoms.

In this podcast you will learn

• What the Alliance For Natural Health is doing every day to maintain our health freedoms
• The attacks on our health freedoms and where they come from
• How we can work together with organizations like ANH to bring about real change to medicine