In many parts of the world, including rural New Mexico, it's difficult for patients to access specialists in health care. But instead of moving more providers to those areas, what if doctors and other health professionals who already work in those communities could gain the knowledge and expertise they need to help their patients? That's the idea behind Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcome, or . It launched in 2003 at the University of New Mexico to respond to the growing Hepatitis C crisis around New Mexico. The model now helps doctors treat more than 55 complex medical conditions through academic medical centers and other sites across the United States and around the world.
Weekly teleECHO clinics use video conferencing, case-based learning and mentoring to connect primary care providers and health workers with experts in a variety of fields, creating supportive professional communities where all teach and all learn. Last year, President Barack Obama , which directs the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to study how to integrate the model more widely into health care.
On this episode, we speak with Dr. Sanjeev Arora, founder of Project ECHO, and Dr. Leslie Hayes, a primary care provider in Espa帽ola who has used ECHO.
We also check with Matthew Reisen, news editor of the , about issues the student newspaper is following.
