Published by NYAM

ABSTRACT
Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a collaborative medical education model that aims to build health workforce capacity in rural and underserved areas. Originally created with the goal of increasing access to care for hepatitis C in rural New Mexico, the ECHO model is now being used to address health care shortages all over the world and across diseases and specialties—ranging from autism care for children to palliative care for older adults.

In order to support ECHO implementers in evaluating the success of their program, The New York Academy of Medicine developed "Project ECHO® Evaluation 101: A practical guide to evaluating your program,"which describes evaluation best practices with a focus on how they are relevant or can be tailored to the Project ECHO model. The guide aims to encourage ECHO programs to engage in evaluation efforts and build the evidence-base for their program and the ECHO model, with a focus on those groups with limited evaluation funding and/or expertise. It draws on information gathered from a review of the literature, interviews with ECHO leaders in the US and Canada, and information from Academy experts in evaluation, health services research and health economics.

Funding for this guide was provided by the New York State Health Foundation and the GE Foundation.