The Project ECHO Model is one of the things that the IU Indianapolis ECHO Center is built upon. The ECHO Model is what connects local primary care teams with specialists from different disciplines, to ensure the highest quality of care through expanding knowledge and looking to provide local providers with increasingly new methods of care and enhancing their scope of knowledge in a variety of different departments or patients.
The first principle of the ECHO model is the use of technology to leverage scarce resources. Now, what does this mean? Within our ECHOs, we look to use technology through our ECHO meetings via Zoom to easily meet with healthcare professionals from all over the nation and beyond. During these ECHO meetings, participants present real patient cases and community stories to experts, as well as learn from each other! All done on the Zoom call.
The second principle of the ECHO Model is sharing best practices to reduce disparities. The sessions look to put an emphasis on equity based on a variety of things, like ensuring participants get good – and improving – quality of care even within disadvantaged communities. Each ECHO session features a didactic presentation on best practices.
The third principle of the ECHO Model is applying case-based learning to master complexity. This is generally done through patient case presentations and having providers/experts provide quality advice as to how participants should approach the real-world case. The ECHO Model encourages this, as it brings together specialists and participants from a variety of specialties and disciplines to really maximize learning.
The fourth – and final – principle of the ECHO Model is evaluating and monitoring outcomes. Follow-ups are done from time to time with providers, in which they will show how participants’/experts’ recommendations for the patient worked. ECHO aims to move knowledge across communities to ensure patients have access to care where they need it most. ECHO is becoming a key part of providers continued learning and is looking to expand with each passing year.
At the IU Indianapolis ECHO Center, we are always looking to establish new partnerships with a growing landscape that involves all members of the healthcare team at the table.
Leave a Reply