Cleveland Clinic invests in 'functional medicine' to fix dysfunctions in healthcare

When the head of the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic approached Dr. Mark Hyman about creating a department that would employ the doctor's specialty of "functional medicine," Hyman was typically blunt. "If I create a program there, it would cut the number of angioplasties and bypasses in half, and reduce hospital admissions," he told clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove. And if slicing the number of cardiac procedures at the country's top heart hospital wasn't alarming enough, Hyman warned that he would strive to take functional medicine to its ultimate end by teaching patients to care for themselves so they could avoid the hospital altogether.