An Evaluation of An Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) Intervention in Cancer Prevention and Survivorship Care

The Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model is a hub and spoke approach that uses a telementoring intervention design that connects the frontline healthcare workers from various locations with experts at an academic center at regularly scheduled times. This paper outlines the experiences of a USA based group, in using ECHO for cancer prevention and survivorship education. Using a framework focused on medical education, Moore’s Evaluation Framework for Continuing Medical Education, to guide their study, the authors conducted 22 semi-structure interviews and 30 anonymous surveys. They found the program was well received with very positive satisfaction and feedback by primary care providers in terms of their improvement in knowledge, confidence and practice. Three key features identified were that both program participants and target audience valued the conversational format, gaining real-life experiences, and support from a professional interdisciplinary community. Despite this, there was low primary care provider participation and future research is needed to explore this imbalance.   Read the full article here.