Physicians team up to treat addiction in rural areas

Physicians in New Mexico have developed a distance learning model to address inadequate access to medical care in rural and traditionally underserved areas. Through a special focus on substance use and behavioral health disorders, the project has bolstered primary care physicians’ ability to care for patients with substance use disorders in the midst of the opioid overdose epidemic. Led by Professor of Medicine Sanjeev Arora, MD, Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) was created at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in 2003. The project is a free-of-charge distance education model that connects primary care professionals with specialists through simultaneous video conferencing to help them develop and share knowledge in the care of a variety of complex health conditions they may not have felt prepared to treat. How Project ECHO works The ECHO model connects local clinicians, or “spokes,” with specialist teams at academic medical centers, or “hubs,” in weekly teleconference clinics called teleECHO™ clinics. During these weekly two-hour sessions, participants present patient cases that raise challenging medical and other treatment issues to collect the input of their colleagues and the specialists on the call. TeleECHO clinic sessions typically begin with a brief didactic discussion on an aspect of substance use disorder or behavioral health. Then a participant gives an oral case presentation—cases are submitted by par...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news