“Integrative Health System” beyond “Integrative Medicine”: A health system research perspective for “One Nation, One Health System”

One Nation, One Health System has many dimensions, and an inclusive Integrative Health System is one of the overarching and cross-cutting approaches to attain it. This paper discusses the imperatives for creating an Integrative Health System that incorporates AYUSH and Allopathic knowledge traditions. Since Integrative Health System is a term diversely understood and used, the need to conceptualize it and come to a shared understanding is highlighted. The paper brings insights and tools from a Health Systems perspective to suggest conceptualizing an Integrative Health System framework. It proposes that the IHS has three components— Integrative Medicine, Integrative Public Health, and an Integrative Health Care System. After discussing these components, the paper moves on to the Health Systems Research required for designing an Integrative Health Care System. The Complex Adaptive Systems approach is considered appropriate and explained. An illustration is provided from a study conducted to study the role and status of Ayush services and Local Health Traditions in the Public health system. Inferring conclusions from the study mentioned above and similar studies undertaken by the author, few illustrative inputs regarding Integrative Health Systems are provided, which would adequately support an ecosystem that allows interaction and dialogue between systems. It is postulated that this requires a shift in thinking from the dominant positivist paradigm to a critical holist paradigm.