The study will utilize pre-post survey measures to evaluate Project ECHO for ILD with respect to an initial set of practice and clinical outcomes and relies on questionnaire data obtained from providers participating in Project ECHO for ILD at baseline, at 6 months, and at study end.
Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a knowledge-sharing model to expand the capacity of the health care workforce so that more people can get high quality care for their health conditions in or near the communities where they live. The model brings specialty disease expertise to community providers through its hub-and-spoke networks. The model relies on videoconferencing to connect local providers in non-urban or underserved communities (spoke sites) with an interdisciplinary team of specialist providers at academic medical centers (hubs) during virtual "teleECHO" clinic sessions, which include brief educational lectures and case-based, experiential learning. It is a guided, technology-enabled collaborative practice model in which community providers become experts in an area of community need within the scope of their practice, operating with increasing independence as their skills and self-efficacy grow. The model establishes meaningful, ongoing relationships with hub specialists who serve as telementors for spoke providers and relies on case-based learning from presentations of real-world de-identified patient cases. The overarching goal of the project is to implement and evaluate an adaptation of the ECHO model to interstitial lung disease (ILD) diagnosis and care among primary care physicians (PCPs) and community pulmonologists in non-urban or underserved communities.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
200
Pulmonary Care and Research Collaborative, Ltd.
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Impact on procedural knowledge
Change in participants' skills or competence in knowing ILD testing and treatment procedures based on a Likert scale rating (1=no skill and 7=expert, teach other) included in the structured participant surveys administered at baseline, 6 months, and at study end.
Time frame: Up to 18 months
Impact on local care utilization
Change of proportion of patients utilizing local ILD care services, including the frequency of local follow-up visits and testing. Change in scores will be calculated between structured participant surveys responses at baseline, 6 months, and at study end.
Time frame: Up to 18 months
Time to ILD diagnosis
The amount of time it takes for a participant's patient to be given an established, named ILD diagnosis (IPAF, IPF, HP, CTD-ILD, myositis-ILD, idiopathic NSIP, etc.) from onset of respiratory symptoms and from the time of first pulmonologist appointment. This data will be obtained from teleECHO clinic management records and participants' case and follow-up reporting for patients who were presented to the ECHO for diagnosis.
Time frame: Up to 18 months
Content expert facilitation
Proportion of participants who agree that the quality of content expert facilitation was adequate during the teleECHO session. This will be collected monthly from post-session surveys via a Likert scale (1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree).
Time frame: Up to 18 months
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