Project ECHO - Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes

  -The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNM HSC) has developed an innovative and widely applicable model to provide treatment for patients with chronic, common and complex diseases who do not have direct access to specialty healthcare providers. This knowledge-on-demand model is called Project ECHO – Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes.

Conceived as a means to treat HCV-infected patients in New Mexico’s rural communities and prison system, Project ECHO can assist in diagnosing and successfully treat many other chronic illnesses and conditions. Project ECHO connects urban medical center disease experts with rural general practitioners and community health representatives over a telehealth network.

 The ultimate goal of Project ECHO is to provide the same level of healthcare to rural patients with chronic diseases as can be obtained in an urban setting. A secondary goal is to provide rural healthcare practitioners with a level of interaction and support commensurate with their urban counterparts to enhance their technical competence and decrease their feelings of professional isolation.

Project ECHO is being field-tested in weekly, regularly scheduled telemedicine clinics hosted by UNM HSC specialists in the areas of hepatitis C. Through use of the UNM HSC Telehealth pathways and internet-based access, community healthcare providers around New Mexico are afforded the opportunity to present cases which are discussed among the network participants to jointly reach treatment decisions. Project ECHO will incorporate Community Health Extension Agents (CHEA), patterned after the county agricultural extension agent, to assist primary care physicians in the care of patients and to bridge the gap between the urban network hub and the rural healthcare clinics.

Project ECHO has also developed relationships with Bernalillo Community Health Center, Pojoaque Primary Care, Hidalgo Medical Services, Ben Archer Community Health Centers and Health Centers of Northern New Mexico.

In addition to the partnerships already involved in Project ECHO, New Mexico Technet and The New Mexico Telehealth Alliance have also agreed to serve roles in the project by helping manage ongoing relations with the rural communities to adequately support the telemedicine initiative, and to promote and assist in leveraging other telemedicine applications across this network.

Sample Telehealth Job Descriptions