Project ECHO
During the pandemic, when travel to India was not possible, APLI and the Trivandrum Institute of Palliative Sciences (TIPS) set up an ECHO Hamrahi community of practice, with Prof Odette Spruijt coordinating. This involved all Hamrahi sites, mentees and mentors meeting regularly for case-based learning, problem solving around service development or other topics of interest to the group. Many of you will be familiar with ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcome), but for those who are new to this, please see the link below:
Project ECHO is a model of regular, interactive, online learning that provides access to professional advice and aims to support and empower health professionals in their practice. The underlying principle of ECHO is that ‘all teach, all learn’. This non-hierarchical model recognizes that expert knowledge needs local knowledge and application for successful outcomes in patient care.
TIPS has extensive experience conducting ECHO programs and kindly hosted the sessions for APLI. Pallium India has been providing ECHO training for the last six years, and in 2020 they increased their ECHO programs more than four-fold and the number of participants increased ten-fold. This confirms both the need amongst clinicians and indicates the competence and high reputation of the Pallium India faculty.
With the resumption of face to face visits and declining interest from clinicians in online learning, ECHO Hamrahi is currently in recess. If there is sufficient interest in the future, the program will resume.