Effectiveness, Safety, Accessibility, Efficiency, and Appropriateness of Homeopathy in an Epidemic: Findings from a 5-Month Clinical Audit

Abstract

Background: Homeopathy – one of the key members of the Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Heath (TCIH) systems - has a long tradition stretching to the early 1800’s in the management of acute infectious epidemic disease. Purpose: This audit aims to assess the clinical effectiveness of telehealth interventions in an out-patient, individualized homeopathy clinical setting for 305 individuals with symptoms of positive or probable COVID-19 by a team of professional homeopaths working together in the United States during spring and summer of 2020. Methods: This retrospective audit, spanning March to August 2020, examines the merits of the initiative considering accessibility, effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and appropriateness of the care model. Results: Positive intervention outcomes were found in every measure: individual remedy prescriptions (83.4% positive), final outcomes of interventions (76.2% positive), and degree of recovery following homeopathic interventions (74.4%). Additionally, ease of access for a range of users, a high level of safety of the interventions, and efficiency of care and team resources indicated consistently positive outcomes. Conclusion: Given the significant strain on conventional healthcare systems during the early stages of the pandemic, the complementary medicine interventions studied here offer important considerations for meeting the demands for COVID-19 acute care with agile and adaptive complementary medicine models.

Keywords

• COVID
• homeopathy
• pandemic
• clinical audit
• telehealth