Bravewell Collaborative

A Community of Philanthropists Transforming Healthcare

The Bravewell Collaborative was founded in 2002 by a small group of leading philanthropists dedicated to transforming healthcare by returning the soul to medicine. As an operating foundation, the Bravewell Collaborative chooses and manages its own initiatives, all of which support the advancement of integrative medicine by creating systemic change and translating emerging knowledge into broad practice.

The Bravewell Collaborative is proud of its accomplishments of the last five years:

• We undertook the development of a nationally acclaimed Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series that was sponsored by Twin Cities Public Television and produced by Middlemarch, an Emmy Award-winning producer.  The production — The New Medicine — aired on PBS on March 29, 2006 on 516 stations nationwide. More than 4.2 million people watched the first broadcast.  It has since been rebroadcast on different stations numerous times and has won several awards and nominations.  In addition, the New Medicine DVD was PBS’s biggest seller in 2006.

• We engaged McKinsey & Company in a pro bono study, which analyzed the fundamental issues confronting Integrative Medicine centers.

• Based on the findings of the McKinsey study, we established the Bravewell Clinical Network, a group of eight leading centers across the country that deliver integrative medicine, and are currently helping these centers achieve sustainability.

• We are in the process of establishing the first Practice-Based Research Network in Integrative Medicine, which will provide much needed outcomes-based research and lead to an improved standard of care.
  

• We supported the development of a Clinical Fellowship in Integrative Medicine in collaboration with the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. To date, fifty-one Bravewell Fellowships have been awarded.
  

• We established the Bravewell Leadership Award, which honors one leader in integrative medicine whose efforts are transforming healthcare and confers a $100,000 award. The first award was conferred in 2003 and the second in 2005.
  

• We funded the infrastructure for the Consortium for Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine, a network of 39 highly esteemed medical schools that are working to further integrative medicine.  In addition, we supported the development of a core curriculum in integrative medicine, which was distributed in May 2004 to medical schools throughout the country.

• We published Best Practices in Integrative Medicine: A Report from the Bravewell Clinical Network, a 137 page document that outlines the best practices of eight leading integrative medicine clinics in the US.

• We created the Bravewell Pioneers of Integrative Medicine Award to honor the early leaders in the field.  The first six Pioneers were honored on November 8, 2007 at an all-day event in New York City.

To learn more about our major initiatives, click here.