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The International Nurse Coach Association Announces Educational Partnership With IFM
For Immediate Release
February 3, 2017
North Miami, FL—The International Nurse Coach Association (INCA) is proud to announce its educational partnership with The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM). The two organizations will continue to support the growth in knowledge surrounding functional nutrition and the clinical adoption of functional medicine principles in an integrative nurse coach clinical practice.
Nurses are seeking new directions in integrative care and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, and nurse coaching, clinical nutrition, and functional medicine are woven into the curriculum and core content so that nurses can integrate new knowledge and skills into all practice settings.
IFM Director of Medical Education Kristi Hughes, ND, states, “We are thrilled to be partnering with INCA to help grow the number of trained nurse health coaches. This program is unique in that it is designed by nurses for nurses and really highlights the ways that nurses can leverage their existing clinical training to become experts in coaching patients through major lifestyle changes.”
The Integrative Nurse Coach approach is a comprehensive model of care that integrates coaching skills, including those related to lifestyle change, to increase awareness of the impact of nutrition and environment on health and well-being. Integrative nurses weave energy modalities, awareness practices, and their expert skills to improve patient/client outcomes. This emerging medical nutrition model combines modern science, clinical wisdom, and critical thinking and is being driven by increasing consumer demand.
INCA provides the Integrative Nurse Coach Certification Program (INCCP), which is a combination of 120 hours onsite and online. Nurses who go through INCCP training are eligible to sit for the national nurse coach certification exam to become Health and Wellness Nurse Coaches. Nurses are also eligible to sit for the Holistic Nursing Board Certification (HN-BC) and the Health and Wellness Nurse Coach Board Certification (HWNC-BC) upon completion of the INCCP. The INCCP is the only program developed by nurse leaders for nurses, and it recognizes their unique contribution in interprofessional models of care and in the transformation of health through a holistic and integrative approach that promotes healthy lifestyles. Core faculty include nationally recognized nurse leaders Monique Class, IFM Certified Practitioner and Board Certified Nurse Coach; Susan Luck, Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Certified Clinical Nutritionist, and Co-Director of INCA; and Barbara Dossey, Board Certified Nurse Coach and Co-Director of INCA. Susan Luck, co-founder of INCA and a functional medicine practitioner for over 25 years, believes that this partnership with IFM will resonate with nurses and fits perfectly into the skills and competencies within the field of nursing. It further offers the opportunity to increase the knowledge needed to partner with other health professionals in an evolving functional medicine paradigm, thus transforming health care. Both IFM and INCA have been key players in this transformation.
IFM Chief Executive Officer Laurie Hofmann, MPH, says, “The health coach training provided by INCA is a natural fit for nurses to learn how to help patients with behavior change using methods that are well-aligned with their scope of practice. We are excited to have INCA as an educational partner and look forward to the inclusion of trained nurse-coach graduates in the functional medicine care team of the future.”
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Contact
Susan Luck and Monique Class
info@inursecoach.com
The International Nurse Coach Association’s (INCA) mission serves to bring nurses together to expand their knowledge and skills through a whole-person model of care that promotes health and healing, locally to globally. For more information, please visit INurseCoach.com.
About The Institute for Functional Medicine
The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) is the global leader in functional medicine. The mission of IFM is to serve the highest expression of individual health through the widespread adoption of functional medicine as the standard of care.
Functional medicine is a personalized, systems-oriented model that empowers patients and practitioners to achieve the highest expression of health by working in collaboration to address the underlying causes of disease. The primary drivers of the chronic disease epidemic are the daily interactions among an individual’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle choices. functional medicine addresses these underlying causes of disease and equips healthcare practitioners to help their patients manage this complex, interconnected web.
Functional nutrition emphasizes the importance of high quality foods and phytonutrient diversity to address clinical imbalances and move individuals toward the highest expression of health. Advanced nutrition assessment and a thorough functional medicine-based history leads to a personalized therapeutic intervention created to promote optimal health and prevent diet- and lifestyle-related disease.