Primary care providers throughout New Jersey will soon be able to expand the capacity within their practices for treating patients with complex health conditions by participating in Robert Wood Johnson Partners’ Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes).
RWJ Partners plans to launch its Academic Medical Center Project ECHO Hub with its first three clinics — each focusing on a complex condition that is highly prevalent among New Jersey’s Medicaid and underserved patient populations. The three tele-mentoring clinics, which each offer weekly sessions, will launch this fall with Hepatitis C; Autism (ASD), ADHD and Pediatric Mental Health; and Advanced Endocrinology. Funded by The Nicholson Foundation, the Project ECHO Academic Medical Center Hub in New Jersey is a statewide collaboration with Robert Wood Johnson Partners, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, the RWJ Barnabas Health System, the RWJ University Hospital, and Children’s Specialized Hospital.
The Nicholson Foundation’s $1.9 million, two-year grant to fund the New Jersey Project ECHO Academic Medical Center Hub is part of its ongoing effort to fund strategies that are targeted to meet the needs of the underserved and that can be brought to scale to transform health care delivery in New Jersey. “It is vital that health care systems test new models and approaches to improve care delivery and lower costs of care for vulnerable populations,” said Joan Randell, COO, The Nicholson Foundation. “At a time when our state’s primary care providers are challenged to do more with less, Project ECHO can spread best practices for improving care while also lowering costs by sharing specialty medical knowledge with primary care providers who have an ongoing relationship with the patients.”
“Project ECHO fosters mentorship relationships between specialists and primary care providers utilizing a collaborative model of medical education,” said Kathy Dodsworth, Project ECHO executive director, RWJ Partners. “The model supports primary care providers treating patients with more complex cases in their own practice settings and expands access to specialty care for underserved patients in New Jersey, ultimately decreasing the likelihood of avoidable hospitalizations.”
Providers can join Project ECHO weekly tele-mentoring clinics from their offices, homes or other locations and earn continuing medical education credits. Sessions are 90 minutes and include HIPAA-compliant de-identified case presentations followed by a 15-minute expert-led didactic presentation. The case presentations engage all participants in collaborative problem-solving with a multidisciplinary team of specialists and other primary care providers around the state.
“Early identification of disease may be missed by providers who do not always understand how to evaluate childhood issues,” said Amy Mansue, president, Southern Region, RWJ Barnabas Health. “The medical education and collaboration through Project ECHO can have a great impact in addressing the specific medical needs of children through more accurate diagnosis and early intervention.”
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the nation, with 1.4 million of its residents living at or below the federal poverty level. The Rutgers Council of Teaching Hospitals found, however, that New Jersey also has the lowest percentage of doctors who accept Medicaid patients, compounding the growing unmet needs of underinsured or uninsured patients needing access to health care.
“It is vital that we improve access to care for all New Jersey residents,” said Sherine E. Gabriel, M.D., M.Sc., dean of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. “We support the statewide implementation of Project ECHO to engage primary care providers who are committed to improving patient care through the expansion of treatment knowledge. Project ECHO could be the beginning of how continuous medical education is delivered in the future.”
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