This talk will address the theme of “Advancing Interprofessional Care through Practice-Education Partnership” by describing a model of workplace learning and continuing professional development. Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) is an interprofessional, workplace learning model developed to build the capacity of healthcare teams to deliver evidence-based care focusing on complex condition/s and/or underserved populations. The ECHO program supports team-based workforce development using zoom for case-based learning led by expert, interprofessional teams.
Jefferson Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education became an ECHO hub in 2021 to engage clinical teams in this learning model. This presentation will describe JCIPE’s ECHO hub, FY25 outcomes, and best practices. In FY25, JCIPE coordinated 5 ECHO series for 3 ECHO programs: Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH), Inpatient Care for Opioid Use Disorder, and Caring for Patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). 329 learners participated including physicians (38%), nurses (16.4%), social workers (10%), advanced practice nurses (6.7%), pharmacists (4.3%), counseling and behavioral health specialists (4.0%), occupational therapist (2.1%), public health practitioners (2.1%), physician assistants (1.2%), and physical therapists (0.9%). ECHO teams utilized strategies to improve engagement including 1) asking polling questions at the beginning of ECHO sessions to gauge experience with the topic and whether participants had additional cases to share; 2) starting with the case discussion before the didactic; 3) asking polling questions at the end of ECHO sessions to assess learner application to practice; 3) reinforcing ECHO goals and series learning objectives at the start of each session; 4) recruiting participants across the enterprise with shared interests; 5) embedding the model in resident education conference; and 6) including patients and caregivers with lived experience as speakers, panelists, and/or participants.
In a post-ECHO survey (n=97), a majority of participants agreed or strongly agreed that their participation resulted in a “better sense of my team members’ roles and responsibilities,” (78%) and an “increased appreciation for the expertise of different health professions” (91%). In Spring 2025, a novel post-program evaluation (n = 42) for ECHO IBH and ECHO IDD identified that 83% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they were “more likely to collaborate with interprofessional team members in patient care” as a result of their ECHO participation.
This presentation addresses several priority areas as the ECHO program engages patients and caregivers, aims to build workforce capacity to enhance care for underserved populations, presents measurable learning outcomes, and is designed to impact the Quintuple Aim.
