Acupuncture in Integrative Care: SWOT Analysis

10.6968/TJCCM.202401_30(1).0001

Eric Lung-Cheng HSIAO；S. Prasad Vinjamury；Sue Mir；Lawrence Lung-Sheng HSIAO

Acupuncture ； Integrative Care ； SWOT Analysis

台灣中醫臨床醫學雜誌

30卷1期（2024 / 01 / 01）

1 - 14

英文

Integrative care is becoming more popular in recent years in the United States of America, and the use of acupuncture is a major part of integrative health care services. Therefore, it is important to understand the specific role of acupuncture within Integrative care. Thus, by using the SWOT analysis method, we investigated the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for acupuncture in integrative care. These findings can serve as a reference to integrate acupuncture into integrative health care to provide better patient outcomes. Our SWOT analysis indicates that the strengths of acupuncture in integrative care: including strong demand for acupuncture from patient and professional perspective; the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat a variety of conditions; low serious adverse events and very low incidence of serious complications; acupuncture practice requires formal education through schools, training programs, and certification. Weaknesses of acupuncture in integrative care are Lack of collaboration between conventional medicine practitioners and acupuncturists; limited research in acupuncture as an integrative care; Cultural diversity of practitioners and their styles, which creates a lack of uniform standards. Opportunities for acupuncture in integrative care include continued recognition of acupuncture's benefits in not only pain relief, but also in other conditions such as PTSD, etc.; continued funding and support from the government, as it is part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now; maybe cost-effective when compared to conventional medicine. Threats of acupuncture in integrative care: slow process to integrate acupuncture into health care system; acupuncture is not a uniform profession; definition of acupuncturist and Traditional Chinese Medicine are not clear; definition of the scope of practice of acupuncturist. Finally, other medical professions like to practice acupuncture by attending weekend seminars or after very limited hours of training. Overall, the advantages of acupuncture in integrative care outweighs the disadvantages, and the opportunities outweigh the threats. We recommend increased cooperation and education with mainstream medicine through schools, programs, and practices; improve the quality of research and use evidence-based practice to overcome the cultural diversity of Chinese medicine, theory, and practice. If acupuncture is properly integrated into conventional health services, accessibility and affordability to acupuncture may increase for many patients, who must pay out of pocket for acupuncture services when it is provided separately.