Celebrating 35 years

“As a physician, I find that Whole Health Educators are incredibly supportive in my attempt to help patients regain or maintain wellness. The Educators reinforce knowledge, motivate patient behavior, and have the time to help remove barriers to wellness. Whole Health Education is a very potent, valuable tool in helping patients transform their lives.”

— Harvey Zarren, M.D., F.A.C.C.
Principal Investigator, Whole Health Education Pilot Study
Union Hospital, Lynn, MA, a Partners Health Care Affiliate

The NIWH Whole Health Education® curriculum is the product of a 35-year process that has impacted standards and guidelines for the practice  of health care in all settings. It has also redefined holistic health education to include evidence-based research along side natural approaches to healing, health and wellness.

Within Whole Health Education, Maslow’s five-stage hierarchy, Sir Isaac Newton’s Third law, Mother Theresa’s example of love-centered service, Buddha’s wisdom that “everything is everything” and the Golden Rule meld into a perspective that encourages an appreciation for patients as whole and unique human beings.

The NIWH Whole Health Education program combines one-to-one peer counseling with respectful listening, unconditional presence, the big picture of health ®,* Behavioral Engagement ™* and current evidence-based medical and alternative health information.

The NIWH organizational mission, in creating this transformational education model, is to invite people into the process of their own healing and self-care. It provides the basis for a new health care modality, Whole Health Education which expands on the context and contents of existing holistic health education programs.

By 1980, this model of relationship-centered patient health education was being utilized at a Boston-area hospital in both in-patient and out patient clinics. In 1989, when funding for the clinic ended, Whole Health Education had experienced nine years of patient application and clinical formation which helped craft it into its present form.

In 1996, NIWH was contacted by Union Hospital, a Harvard affiliate hospital in Lynn, MA. The Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation, who became aware of Whole Health Education ® through a nurse extern at the hospital, wanted to bring the model to the Cardiac Rehabilitation Department for a Pilot Trial Study.

From 1997 until 2002, Whole Health Education was tested and utilized in the Cardiac Rehabilitation Department and a Department of Whole Health Education was established within the hospital’s medical center.

In 2005, the NIWH model became the mandate for “the practice of medicine in all settings”. Both the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO) and hospitals and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) identified these key guidelines which include:

• patients at the center of their health care decision making
• care for the whole person
• evidenced-based health education
• Medicaid/Medicare initiatives, currently voluntary but soon to be mandatory, include patient education, prevention of disease states and “Pay for Performance” reimbursement guidelines for medical practices. “Pay for Performance” reimbursements are based on a physician’s documentation of patient education methods and disease prevention outcomes data.

In addition to its success as patient education model, Whole Health Education is also a way of being in relationship with others. Union Hospital nominated Whole Health Education for the prestigious Fetzer Institute’s Norman Cousin Award, as a Best Practice in Relationship Centered Care.

The philosophy and application of Whole Health Education illustrate that, be it the practice of medicine or business, the micro-relationship of practitioner to patient or the macro-relationship of business to community, there is a rightness of relationship which serves the common good:

When we listen respectfully,
are fully present,
act justly and compassionately,
understand that we do not heal others,
invite rather than direct, and
recognize that each person possesses innate wisdom
we create healing and transformational relationships.

Whole Health Education demonstrates its transformational power in clinical and healing environments when patients, physicians and caregivers experience being known in a profoundly respectful way. It honors their emotional, social and spiritual selves, affirming that they are unique and irreplaceable parts of the human family. Whole Health Education represents a renaissance of relationship-centered care and has been called “a touchstone for the future of health care.”

It is an extraordinary privilege for NIWH to steward this humble and simple vision which springs forth from the collective consciousness of the human soul. It has evolved in its own time to befriend us, to remind us of how we can be with one another. It is a response to the heart’s longing for the rapture which comes from embracing our authentic self, for in each of us lie the seeds of potential for that wondrous possibility!

* the big picture of health is a Registered Trademark of the National Institute of Whole Health. Behavioral Engagement is a Trademark of the National Institute of Whole Health.