Leveraging Project ECHO for IPCE: Bridging the Gap with COVID-19 Education for Nursing Home Staff in California

The coronavirus pandemic is a public health crisis that has had far-reaching impacts across the globe. As the medical and scientific communities work toward the shared goal of combatting this virus, a challenge for clinicians and scientists continues to be staying abreast of the ever-changing updates and findings related to COVID-19. This was even more apparent for clinicians and staff at nursing homes across the nation.

Since the U.S. coronavirus outbreak began in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, more than 183,000 residents and employees of 7700 U.S. nursing homes and long term care facilities have contracted Covid-19, accounting for over 35% of the country’s deaths. Nursing homes have been ill equipped to stop the spread of the virus. They lacked the resources necessary to contain the outbreak, including tests and personal protective equipment, and their staff are routinely underpaid and undertrained.

In October of 2020, Stanford CME began participating in the National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network supported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and in partnership with Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to provide free training and mentorship to nursing homes to increase the implementation of evidence-based infection prevention and safety practices to protect residents and staff.

Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) is a model for delivering technology-enabled education and cultivating a community of practice. Due to the rapidly changing guidelines for nursing homes based on their location, it was imperative that the interprofessional education delivered was around the needs of the nursing home community. The ECHO Hub faculty were an interprofessional team composed of Geriatricians, Nurses, QI coach and experts form the California Quality Improvement Organization. By November, Stanford CME had implemented ECHO cohorts reaching a total of 457 nursing homes. The 16-week program was to rapidly assist Nursing Homes in the United States to develop the capabilities to consistently implement evidence-based best practices.

We aim to share how we leveraged the Project ECHO model to deliver interprofessional education, collaborating with not only the experts but the target audience to ensure that education was evidence based and designed with the nursing home community in mind.

At the end of the seminar, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the ECHO Model and best practices for designing an IPCE Echo Hub
2. Review the Stanford Nursing Home ECHO program, including challenges and success

Outline

1. Overview of Project ECHO
2. Stanford Nursing Home ECHO
   • IPCE/Engaging the Community
   • Best Practices
   • Challenges and Successes of a large scale ECHO program
   • Metrics

Participants will gain practical strategies to implement a large scale IPCE ECHO program.

We intend to utilize polling, Q&A and discussion opportunities.

This project was funded under Contract No. 75Q80120C00003 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The authors of this document are responsible for its content. The content does not necessarily represent the official views of or imply endorsement by AHRQ or HHS.