Utilizing Project ECHO to Support Management of Cancer Survivors in a Primary Care Setting
Introduction
Clinical training for primary care providers (PCPs) regarding the management of cancer survivors is limited. Building on work from a prior CPRIT project, we are implementing a 2-year Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes)-based, tele-mentoring curriculum to increase self-efficacy among interdisciplinary care team members of a family medicine practice. This project is a collaboration between the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center and the UT Physicians Bayshore Family Practice clinic as part of the UTH-MDA Population Health Initiative.
Methods
Participants, including family medicine physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, social workers, and community health workers, attended monthly MD Anderson-led survivorship tele-mentoring sessions. During each session a brief didactic lecture by an oncology expert was presented followed by patient case discussions. Topics for lectures were generated by survey with family medicine providers. A survey was distributed six months into the program to assess attendees’ knowledge and confidence in series content. Here we report data on feasibility of implementation and satisfaction with content and knowledge objectives.
Results
From July 2022 – June 2023 we hosted 11 ECHO sessions with average attendance of 33 participants. A total of 329 participants claimed 110 CME/CE credits and 82 ethics credits for the content. Respondents to evaluation (N=14) indicated improvement in both knowledge and confidence level from attending the series (50% with high/very high confidence before compared with 93% after for each item). Majority of respondents plan to make practice changes as a result of the series (= 65%). Top barriers (identified as substantial) to implementing change were insurance/financial, time management, and institutional/organizational.
Conclusion
ECHO can be an effective model to providing ongoing tele-mentoring support and increase provider confidence and knowledge in delivering comprehensive, high-quality survivorship care. Further work is needed to explore the perceived barriers to implementing this type of care in a primary care setting and interventions developed to facilitate clinical adoption.