Since 1997, Katherine Willow, Naturopathic doctor, has been offering integrated health services at the Carp Ridge EcoWellness Centre northwest of Ottawa.

Creating alternative health services has proved to be an advantage for an industry that often deals with uncertainty.

"People have become more educated and are pushing this. Now we're getting some referrals from medical doctors, which is quite new and wonderful for us", said Katherine Willow.

Retailer Tom Weir, General Manager for Feel Good Natural Health Store & Clinic in Oshawa, Ont., also found it worthy to build a central site for alternative health services. The store includes two clinic rooms, shared by various practitioners, which is inclusive of naturopath, a homeopath, osteopathic doctor, acupuncturist and reflexologist. It is located next to a large medical clinic.

Providing services in a public setting would allow practitioners to expose things for patients.

This has led the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine's department of family medicine at McMaster University to support doctors to scan alternative therapies first hand.

McMaster University is the first university in Canada that would include alternative medical practitioners via on-site visits and information swap.