OUD Project ECHO-Like Education: A Pilot to Measure Clinician Change in Knowledge

Context: Project ECHO^® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is an evidence-based educational tool developed by the University of New Mexico to leverage their healthcare workforce capacity to improve care for medically underserved populations. Given the increasing prevalence of OUD’s (opioid use disorder) effect on communities and the healthcare system, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) National Research Network (NRN) designed a pilot study to assess the impact of an adapted OUD-centric tele-mentoring ECHO-like series on clinicians’ knowledge and confidence of the treatment of OUD.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a project ECHO-like model on clinicians’ ability to treat OUD in their patient populations.

Study Design: Mixed methods study including cross-sectional survey data and qualitative data analyzing if clinicians believed the sessions: increased knowledge, decreased professional isolation, and improved the ability to care for their patients.

Setting: 6 primary care practices across the U.S. who participated in the OUD educational series; hosted by the AAFP NRN.

Population studied: Primary care and behavioral health clinicians and non-clinical administrative staff (n = 31) in the AAFP NRN from 6 primary care practices or healthcare systems.

Intervention/Instrument: Study participants engaged in 7, 1-hour long ECHO-like sessions covering opioid and OUD topics. In general, the sessions consisted of a 10 to 15-minute didactic presentation from an Opioid Response Network (ORN) subject matter expert followed by an interactive case study and discussion section over the remaining 45-50 minutes. Surveys were sent to participants by email after each session.

Outcome measures: Changes in participants’ knowledge and confidence in OUD care, as well as measuring the decrease in professional isolation and the ability to care for their OUD patients.

Results: The study team assessed the after-session survey data on the aforementioned factors to demonstrate statistically significant change over the course of the educational series.

Conclusion: This pilot data will inform future efforts by AAFP to implement OUD or SUD (substance use disorder) focused Project ECHOs to improve continuing education trainings and tool kits for primary care clinicians.