Corrections_Today_Spring_2025_Vol.87_No.1

OFFICE OF CORRECTIONAL HEALTH

The American Correctional Association Project ECHO (ACA-Project ECHO) Moving correctional healthcare forward By KF Maurer, MD, Jennifer Clarke, MD, John Hagan, MD and Terri Catlett, PA T he American Correctional Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are joining to

practitioners capable of treating hepatitis C virus-infected patients. Since that time, Project ECHO has expanded to treat not only hepatitis C patients, but also to incorporate instruction about medical practice broadly, as well as many other subject areas including education, mental health, autism and cor rectional healthcare. In short, the ECHO model, initially developed at the University of New Mexico to provide educational support to non-specialists treating hepatitis C patients, has been expanded to a broad variety of medical and other learning settings all around the world. ALL TEACH/ALL LEARN reflects the belief that in a carefully designed educational interchange, all can both learn and teach.

modality utilizes a minimum amount of didactic education with a focus on case presentations, and shared learning. This is especially appropriate for medical teaching as it emphasizes the case discussion model much like the method that many medical professionals initial ly learned and continue to learn medicine. ALL TEACH/ALL LEARN reflects the belief that in a carefully designed educational interchange, all can both learn and teach. That is the primary underlying concept driving ECHO learning. Expert teaching is important, but participants can and should teach one another. The ACA-CDC Contract The contract recently signed by the Office of Correctional Health (ACA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides support to build a nationwide ECHO platform to educate health care professionals in America’s prisons and jails. This will enable providers in these settings to en hance their medical skills regarding HCV care and, should the opportu nity arise, participate directly in a correctional and nationwide HCV elimination program.

gether to create a nationwide virtual learning network for correctional health professionals and others. Dubbed “ACA-Project ECHO,” it is an outgrowth of Project ECHO that has been supporting groups of healthcare providers and others for more than two decades. The history of Project ECHO Project ECHO, (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), was designed in 2003 by Dr. San jeev Arora, a hepatologist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. While caring for patients with Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in New Mexico, Dr. Arora realized early on that there were not enough of “him” or similarly trained colleagues to care for the over whelming numbers of HCV patients in his state. He developed Project ECHO to address this problem. Dr. Arora’s purpose was to teach community practitioners in New Mexico how to treat patients with hepatitis C. The prevalence of this disease was high in his state, but there were few community

The ECHO Model Project ECHO employs a model of education entitled “ALL TEACH, ALL LEARN.” This educational

Corrections Today | Spring 2025

96