Background: In 1994, a grassroots group of Canadian artists from diverse disciplines met to investigate the possibility of creating a specialized health-care facility for professional creative artists and performers. The project grew into an outpatient clinic serving professional artists, in a large urban teaching hospital in Canada. This article focuses on the financial limitations of creating and sustaining such an integrative health care (IHC) clinic for artists. Methods: Qualitative in-depth interviews and focus groups were used to gather information about IHC at the clinic. Results: The findings describe how the expense of implementing IHC directly affected the overall sustainability of the clinic, including such aspects as existing subsidy programs, fundraising, and the integration and scheduling of contract practitioners. Strategies for sustainability included using aspects of business and insurance models to inform the current management of clinic funds. Conclusion: An IHC clinic needs financial resources, and the rationale for its development needs to be made explicit to all stakeholders. Its success will ultimately depend upon the support and commitment of all staff involved.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
