An innovative way of providing medical expertise in the treatment of complex illnesses.
An innovative way of providing medical expertise in the treatment of complex illnesses.
Project ECHO serves as an operating platform for upgrading the health care workforce so that clinicians on the front lines of care can learn new skills and do more for more patients,” says Nancy Barrand, senior adviser for program development.
Project ECHO is a model for lifelong medical learning and collaborative practice that links front-line primary care clinicians with specialist care teams at university medical centers to manage patients who have chronic conditions requiring complex care. It is transforming the way medical knowledge is shared and translated into everyday practice – and, in the process, enabling thousands of people in remote and medically underserved communities to get care they couldn’t easily get before, if at all.
Sanjeev Arora, a liver disease specialist and social entrepreneur at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, created Project ECHO initially as a way to expand access to hepatitis C treatment. Since its launch in 2003, the ECHO model has spread rapidly, with implementations for a variety of conditions – from mental illness to chronic pain to high-risk pregnancy – at nearly a dozen partner sites. The newly launched ECHO Institute, supported by a two-year, $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is working to spread ECHO, both nationally and globally.
Our workforce needs to be upgradable, and Project ECHO is the operating platform we need to make that happen, writes RWJF senior vice president John Lumpkin on the Health Affairs GrantWatch blog.
RWJF's Nancy Barrand and Sanjeev Arora recently spoke about how Project ECHO came to RWJF and what makes it a “pioneering” idea.
In this AAMC Reporter Viewpoint, Sanjeev Arora describes how a commitment to lifelong learning through models like Project ECHO can help address some of the most serious challenges facing our health care system.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced the first nationwide implementation of Project ECHO as a way to bring high-quality, complex care to veterans across the VA system, regardless of where they live.
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A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates that primary care clinicians in remote villages, prisons, and poor urban neighborhoods who were trained to treat patients with hepatitis C via Project ECHO achieved excellent results, identical to those of specialists at a university medical center.
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Albuquerque, NM
