NED Planning Team, Project Director
John Weeks, Project Director
John Weeks, publisher-editor of the Integrator Blog News and Reports (www.theintegratorblog.com), has been involved in integrated health care for 20+ years as an organizer, writer, presenter and consultant. From 1983-1993, he worked in the maturation of the natural health care professions and natural products industry, including periods as a vice president at Bastyr University and on the board of the American Herbal Products Association. Weeks subsequently founded Integration Strategies for Natural Healthcare and focused his energy on the then-emerging areas of cross-disciplinary activity in integrated care. His clients have ranged across the stakeholders in the emerging field: government agencies at all levels, managed care organizations, academic health centers, hospitals and health systems, CAM professional associations, and venture capital firms. Weeks' early newsletter, The Integrator, and its electronic counterpart served as the journals of record on the business aspects of the growing field from 1997-2002. His awareness of the shared, systemic challenges faced by individual leaders made Weeks a strong proponent of fostering communication, cross-fertilization and collaboration among stakeholders. To this end, he took a leading role in convening the Clinician Workgroup on the Integration of CAM (Washington State), the annual Integrative Medicine Industry Leadership Summits (2000-2002), the National Education Dialogue (2004-) and the Academic Consortium for Complementary Health Care. He has been actively involved in supporting the development of the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium since its inception, including fund-raising its first financial support. Weeks' columns, articles and chapters have appeared in numerous professional, industry and peer-reviewed publications. From September 2002-June 2005, Weeks enjoyed a long-planned, extended semi-sabbatical with his wife Jeana and two children, Lucas and Rosalyn, to Costa Rica and then Nicaragua, from which he organized the National Education Dialogue. His prior professional experience was in politics, organizing and journalism. Weeks attended Stanford University for three years, studying history. (johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com; 206-932-5799)