What is Project ECHO

Project ECHO is a virtual education tool that was pioneered by Dr. Sanjeev Arora at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Arora is a liver disease specialist who was practicing in the only liver disease specialty clinic in the entire state of New Mexico. In 2003, Dr. Arora recognized that only around 5% of patients with hepatitis C in New Mexico were receiving appropriate treatment, and as a result, thousands were dying from a treatable disease.

Dr. Arora took action to create a “community of practice.” He connected with primary care providers across New Mexico to help them learn from experts through education and real-life cases how to treat individuals with hepatitis C. Dr. Arora believed that the right medical knowledge in the right hands at the right time could save millions of lives around the world, and he was right. From this effort came a now global organization known as “Project ECHO”

Today, Project ECHO has grown into a diverse global platform that connects thousands of professionals to share expertise to maximize efforts in health, education and civics. A traditional Project ECHO session takes place on a virtual meeting platform, and usually includes presentations from leading experts, as well as case based learning and questions/answer sessions. These sessions allow providers to connect from anywhere in the world to receive peer assistance to break down the geographical barriers experienced especially in places like rural Utah.

Best of all, there is typically no cost associated with participating in Project ECHO, and many sessions offer free CME credits as well!

RHAU Project ECHO

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The RHAU ECHO Hub seeks to provide interdisciplinary health education across the 24 rural and frontier counties in Utah. RHAU ECHO hub focuses on workforce development, and administrative support, while continuing to partner with other ECHO hubs to ensure that all health professionals in rural Utah have the support they need to address the unique challenges facing their communities.

The RHAU ECHO Hub also has a very special focus in supporting individuals seeking to join the health care profession. This includes seeking to connect and support middle and high school students, parents and teachers, undergraduate students on campuses across rural Utah, and graduate health students in the various programs throughout the state.

The overall goal of the RHAU ECHO Hub is to support health workforce growth and work to reduce traditional barriers associated with living and working in rural/frontier areas to ensure that these communities can continue to thrive in our beautiful state of Utah.

Goal of RHAU Project ECHO

History of RHAU Project ECHO Hub

The Rural Health Association of Utah (RHAU) has been partnering with the University of Utah School of Medicine’s ECHO Hub to outreach to providers to attend ECHO clinical training sessions since 2018. This partnership is alive and well today, though RHAU recognized early on that there were additional educational opportunities outside of just clinical health education that could be developed specifically for rural Utah health professionals to aid in addressing continuously changing community health challenges. This led RHAU to complete the necessary tasks to become a formal Project ECHO hub in December 2021.