NSAG · Module M13 · Healthcare & Clinical
Traditional & Complementary Medicine Governance
Standalone deployment retired
Healthcare institutions are adopting traditional and complementary medicine practices in response to patient demand — without evidence integration frameworks, cultural sovereignty agreements, or practitioner credentialing standards. That is adoption without governance.
What this address is
This hostname served a standalone copy of NSAG module M13. That copy was retired on 15 August 2026, and the page you are reading replaced it. The deployment stays online so that links already published against it keep resolving, and so that anyone arriving here is sent to the material that is still maintained.
The module's current scope, its evidence base, and its release status are published on the NSAG hub at nsag-site.vercel.app/m13. Where this page and the hub disagree, the hub is correct.
What the module examines
Steel et al. (2025) report from the WHO's 2024 Bangkok conference that the primary global barrier to TCIM integration is the absence of governance infrastructure to evaluate, integrate, and apply evidence that takes non-RCT forms. Traditional medicine evidence — longitudinal traditional use, case documentation, cultural transmission, outcomes in dimensions biomedical frameworks do not assess — is systematically disadvantaged by evidence frameworks designed for pharmacological interventions. Cultural sovereignty adds an additional governance dimension: Indigenous healing practices belong to the communities that developed them. Institutional incorporation without formal community agreement is cultural appropriation with governance consequences.
M13 sits in the Healthcare & Clinical group of the framework.
What the assessment measured
The module organised a structured self-assessment across six governance dimensions:
- 1Evidence Integration Framework
- 2Cultural Sovereignty & IP Protections
- 3Practitioner Credentialing Standards
- 4Patient Safety Infrastructure
- 5Regulatory Compliance
- 6Integration with Conventional Care
Each dimension was described against tiers running from early stage up to the fully implemented tier the framework calls PIONEERING, with observable criteria written for each level, so that an institution could locate its own arrangements rather than receive a score. It was a self-assessment framework for institutional reflection, and never a validated instrument, an audit, an accreditation, or a compliance determination.
Who it was written for
Hospitals with integrative medicine programs · FQHCs · Native Hawaiian health programs · Naturopathic and acupuncture practices · Wellness centers offering CAM services · Healthcare institutions in Hawaiʻi, Alaska, and tribal health systems
And the communities whose healing practices are being incorporated, and the patients seeking traditional or complementary care.
Why the standalone deployment was retired
The fifteen modules were first published as fifteen separate deployments. Scope, evidence, and release status then had to be maintained in fifteen places, and they drifted apart. The hub now holds one canonical page per module, and these fifteen addresses point at it.
Assessment collection is paused across all fifteen modules. The published operations matrix records the same position for every one of them: the canonical route is reachable, collection is paused, and advisory work is delivered by a person rather than by automated scoring. This page is a static record. It carries no forms and collects nothing.