Integrative Health Institute Expands at UCI – Orange County Register
The new home of the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, a 21,432 square foot space designed to expand its clinical, teaching and research capabilities to offer whole person care, is now open at UC Irvine.
“The new center is the concrete realization of our vision to make integrative care the national standard of care for all people,” said Susan Samueli, co-chair of the board of directors of the Samueli Foundation and a longtime supporter of the institute, which has several smaller clinics serving the dot county. “Every person should feel hopeful, seen and heard as an individual when engaging with the healthcare system, and the new center’s design and approach to care achieves that goal.”
The new flagship of the health institute has 42 rooms for consultation, examination and treatment of patients, cardiac rehabilitation and a variety of other services.
Patients are also offered nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, yoga, and medical group classes. Additionally, the center will be open to the community for yoga, tai chi and nutritional cooking classes, as well as educational talks and events.
More than 50% of the population practices some form of integrative health, but treatments aren’t typically provided in a single room, said Dr. Shaista Malik, General Manager of the Health Institute.
“There’s a real integration here, so patients know we don’t just care about their physical condition, we care about their emotional well-being,” Malik said.
“We have started to uncover the science behind many of the causes of these therapies,” she said of the advances and uptake of integrative healthcare. “For example, acupuncture has evolved so much in the last 20 years that it’s even part of the guidelines for many different conditions. When it comes to treating chronic pain, there is evidence that it is indeed effective.”
The institute will open as part of the 110,000-square-foot complex of the new Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences on the university campus at California Avenue and Michael Drake Drive. Separately, UCI has a large medical center under construction with a new hospital near Birch Street and Jamboree Road.
Orange County philanthropists Susan and Henry Samueli, whose $200 million donation in 2017 funded the development of the Health Sciences College, were recently present at a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of the institute’s new premises .
At the time, the donation was the seventh-largest to a single public university, UCI officials said.
Henry Samueli is the owner of the Anaheim Ducks and co-founder and CEO of Broadcom, a maker of semiconductor and infrastructure software products.
Over the years, the Samuelis have given hundreds of millions of dollars to county philanthropy. In 2000, it was her gift of $5.7 million that helped found the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine.
Integrative health and wellness is a huge passion for Susan Samueli, her husband said.
“We very much hope that this new building and all that it represents reflects you, Susan, and the human dignity and bold ideas that you represent,” said Henry Samueli.
UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman said the institute empowers the whole community by focusing on prevention and wellness, not just disease.
“It’s not an alternative to health,” Gillman said. “This is how health should be. (This institute) is the actual and symbolic entry point to the most ambitious and far-reaching innovations, research and delivery of health education across our nation.
“Health needs to be reimagined,” he said, “and this is the monument to that reconfiguration, not just for our community, but for healthcare and well-being across the country.”
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/10/15/integrative-health-institute-expands-at-uci/ Integrative Health Institute Expands at UCI – Orange County Register