Faculty180 - Vita and Individual Profile Data Sheet

Benjamin Kligler, MD, MPH

Fall 1980 - Fall 2120

[email protected]

Current Position

Position: Adjunct Faculty

Biography

Dr. Kligler is the Former Executive Director of the Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation (OPCCCT) at the Veterans Health Administration, responsible for advancing the Whole Health model throughout the VA system. He is a board-certified family physician who has been working as a clinician, educator, researcher, administrative leader and consultant in the field of Whole Person Health/ Complementary and Integrative Medicine for the past 30 years. In May 2016, he was named National Director of the Integrative Health Coordinating Center (IHCC) as well as Director of Education and Research for Whole Health for OPCC&CT; he became Director of OPCCCT in 2020. Dr. Kligler is a Professor of Family and Community Medicine at Icahn Mount Sinai School of Medicine and was Vice Chair and Research Director of the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Department of Integrative Medicine. He was the founding medical director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing, a large integrative medicine practice which opened in May 2000, and founding director of the Beth Israel Fellowship Program in Integrative Medicine. He is also a core faculty member of the Leadership Program in Health and Well-Being at Duke University.

Dr. Kligler is former Chair of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Health and Medicine, an organization of over 80 medical schools and health systems working to advance education, research, and clinical care in integrative medicine. Dr. Kligler completed a five-year Academic Career Development Award from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at NIH and is former Chair of BraveNet, a 19-center practice-based research network for integrative medicine. He was a co-principal investigator on a PCORI-funded clinical trial of acupuncture treatment for chronic pain delivered in a community-based approach to underserved populations in the Bronx. Dr. Kligler also served as a member of the Advisory Council for the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at NIH from 2019-2025.

As a consultant, Dr. Kligler has worked with multiple health systems and other organizations on strategy and implementation of Whole Health, as well as on development of educational programs for health professionals at all levels. He co-edited a textbook on Integrative Medicine and served as a founding member of the American Board of Integrative Medicine. He has published extensively and presents frequently at national meetings, most recently including the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the American Academy of Family Practice. Dr. Kligler is an Adjunct Professor of Family Medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine and serves as faculty in the Human Dimensions course.

Degrees

1991

MPH, Boston University of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

1990

M.D., Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

1983

B.A., Biology, Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Scholarly Contributions and Creative Productions

Journal Article

Completed/Published

Zeliadt, S. B.; Coggeshall, S. S.; Bokhour, B.; Elwy, A. R. R.; Kligler, B.; Der-Martirosian, C.; Rosser, E. W.; Shin, M.; Toyama, J.; Upham, M. L.; Zhang, X.; Taylor, S. L. Adding Self-Care Complementary and Integrative Health Therapies to Care for Chronic Pain: The Assessing Pain, Patient Reported Outcomes and Complementary Health (APPROACH) Study. 2026, 64 (5), 283–292.
Zhang, X.; Zeliadt, S. B.; Bolton, R. E.; Etingen, B.; Coggeshall, S. S.; Rosser, E. W.; Hee Wai, T. Y.; Luo, G.; Kligler, B.; Bokhour, B. G. Exploring the Ripple Effect: Changes in Quality Measures Before and After Whole Health Adoption in Veterans Health Administration. 2026.
Kligler, B.; Bonnet, J.; Dahmer, S.; Jonas, W.; Kreitzer, M.; Krist, A.; Rw, S. Whole Person Health Care: A Way Forward. 2026, 15598276261440796.
Bolton, R.; Zeliadt, S. B.; Hyde, J.; Etingen, B.; Anderson, E.; Barker, A.; Wu, J.; Kligler, B.; Bokhour, B. G. Embedded Research in a Learning Health System: How a Research-Operations Partnership Informed the Development, Implementation, and Scaling of VA’s Whole Health System. 2026, 10 (1), e70062.
Roseen, E. J.; Hurstak, E. E.; Kim, R. S.; Gao, Q.; Greco, C. M.; Vago, D. R.; Saper, R. B.; Kligler, B.; McKee, M. D. D.; Dusek, J. A.; PRIMIER Study. Nonpharmacologic Back Pain Treatment Use and Associated Patient Reported Outcomes in US-Based Integrative Medicine Clinics. 2025, 14, 27536130251345481.
Dusek, J. A.; Gao, Q.; Kim, R. S.; Abrams, D. I.; Kligler, B.; Dyer, N. L.; Hansen, K.; Roseen, E. J.; McKee, M. D. D.; PRIMIER Writing Group*. Patients Receiving Integrative Medicine Effectiveness Registry (PRIMIER) of the BraveNet Practice-Based Research Network: Results of the Chronic Pain Cohort. 2025, 14 (2), 101141.
Sarkar, A.; Speiser, E.; Dara, S.; Ogedegbe, C.; Chinnery, P.; Estanbouli, M.-T. T.; Kasselman, L.; Kligler, B.; Gourna Paleoudis, E.; Parulekar, M. The Feasibility of Omega-3 Supplementation Compared to Placebo in the Management of Long COVID Symptoms Among Healthcare Workers: A Randomized Controlled Trial. 2024, 16 (12), e76148.
Bokhour, B. G.; Vogt, D.; Kligler, B. Measuring What Matters Most: Considering the Well-Being of the Whole Person in Health Care. 2024, 62 (12 Suppl 1), S1–S3.
Kligler, B.; Teyhen, D.; Cordts, P. Perspectives on Pain Management from the Veterans Health Administration and the Defense Health Agency. 2024, 25 (Supplement_1), S4–S6.
Vogt, D.; Kligler, B.; Darchuk, K.; Elbogen, E.; List, J. M.; McMullen, T.; Murphy, J. L.; Bokhour, B. Measuring the Well-Being of the Whole Person in Clinical Care, Health Research, and Population Health Evaluation: Findings and Recommendations From the XVIII Veterans Health Administration State of the Art Meeting. 2024, 62 (12 Suppl 1), S4–S12.
Vogt, D.; Borowski, S.; Etingen, B.; Merker, V. L.; Bokhour, B.; Kligler, B. Using Well-Being Measurements to Enhance Clinical Practice: Why and How to Ask Patients About Their Broader Well-Being. 2024, 62 (12 Suppl 1), S73–S75.
Taylor, S. L.; Elwy, A. R. R.; Bokhour, B. G.; Coggeshall, S. S.; Cohen, A.; Der-Martirosian, C.; Haderlein, T.; Haun, J.; Kligler, B.; Kloehn, A. T.; Lorenz, K. A.; Lott, B.; Shin, M. H.; Schult, T.; Toyama, J.; Whitehead, A. M.; Zhang, X.; Zeliadt, S. B. Measuring Patient-Reported Use and Outcomes From Complementary and Integrative Health Therapies: Development of the Complementary and Integrative Health Therapy Patient Experience Survey. 2024, 13, 27536130241241259.
List, J. M.; Russell, L. E.; Hausmann, L. R. M.; Groves, K.; Kligler, B.; Koget, J.; Moy, E.; Clancy, C. Addressing Veteran Health-Related Social Needs: How Joint Commission Standards Accelerated Integration and Expansion of Tools and Services in the Veterans Health Administration. 2024, 50 (1), 34–40.
Teets, R.; Nielsen, A.; Moonaz, S.; Anderson, B. J.; Mah, D. M.; Walter, E.; Milanes, M.; Jyung, H.; Soto Cossio, L. E.; Meissner, P.; McKee, M. D. D.; Kligler, B. Group Acupuncture Therapy With Yoga Therapy for Chronic Neck, Low Back, and Osteoarthritis Pain in Safety Net Settings for an Underserved Population: A Feasibility Pilot Study. 2023, 12, 27536130231202515.
Tobin, J.; Zeliadt, S. B.; Upchurch, D. M.; DeFaccio, R.; Douglas, J.; Gelman, H. M.; Hawrilenko, M.; Frochen, S.; McGinty, N.; Resnick, A.; Tomlanovich, N.; Toyama, J.; Whitehead, A. M.; Kligler, B.; Taylor, S. L. Racial and Ethnic Variation in Complementary and Integrative Health Therapy Use Among US Veterans. JAMA network open 2023, 6 (6), e2318020.
Taylor, S. L.; Gelman, H. M.; DeFaccio, R.; Douglas, J.; Hawrilenko, M. J.; McGinty, N. K.; Resnick, A.; Tomlanovich, N. C.; Toyama, J.; Whitehead, A. M.; Kligler, B.; Zeliadt, S. B. We Built It, But Did They Come: Veterans’ Use of VA Healthcare System-Provided Complementary and Integrative Health Approaches. 2023, 38 (4), 905–912.
Kligler, B. Response to Federman et Al. Re: “Self-Administration of Auricular Acupuncture in Rural Veterans with Chronic Pain: A Pilot Project.” 2022, 34 (6), 413–414.
Kligler, B. Burnout, Resilience and Whole Health. Explore (New York, N.Y.) 2022, 18 (3), 255–256.
Kligler, B. Whole Health in the Veterans Health Administration. 2022, 11, 2164957X221077214.
Speiser, E.; Pinto Zipp, G.; DeLuca, D. A.; Paula Cupertino, A.; Arana-Chicas, E.; Gourna Paleoudis, E.; Bethea, T. N.; Kligler, B.; Cartujano-Barrera, F. Environmental Health Needs Among Latinas in Cleaning Occupations: A Mixed Methods Approach. 2022, 16, 11786302221100045.
Dusek, J. A.; Gao, Q.; Kim, R. S.; Abrams, D. I.; Kligler, B.; Dyer, N. L.; Hansen, K.; McKee, M. D. D.; PRIMIER Research Group. Patients Receiving Integrative Medicine Effectiveness Registry (PRIMIER) of the BraveNet Practice-Based Research Network: Outcomes of the PRIMIER Cohort. Complementary therapies in medicine 2022, 71, 102904.
Bokhour, B. G.; Hyde, J.; Kligler, B.; Gelman, H.; Gaj, L.; Barker, A. M.; Douglas, J.; DeFaccio, R.; Taylor, S. L.; Zeliadt, S. B. From Patient Outcomes to System Change: Evaluating the Impact of VHA’s Implementation of the Whole Health System of Care. 2022, 57 Suppl 1 (Suppl 1), 53–65.
Kligler, B.; Hyde, J.; Gantt, C.; Bokhour, B. The Whole Health Transformation at the Veterans Health Administration: Moving From “What’s the Matter With You?” To “What Matters to You?” 2022, 60 (5), 387–391.
Zeliadt, S. B.; Douglas, J. H.; Gelman, H.; Coggeshall, S.; Taylor, S. L.; Kligler, B.; Bokhour, B. G. Effectiveness of a Whole Health Model of Care Emphasizing Complementary and Integrative Health on Reducing Opioid Use among Patients with Chronic Pain. 2022, 22 (1), 1053.

Review

Completed/Published

Kligler, B.; Khung, M.; Schult, T.; Whitehead, A. What We Have Learned About the Implementation of Whole Health in the Veterans Administration. Journal of integrative and complementary medicine 2023, 29 (12), 774–780.