The Act would offer professional development Services to rural providers

The U.S. Senate on a 97-0 vote has approved the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes Act to expand Project ECHO, a step to offer professional development services and other support to healthcare rural providers in remote and underserved regions.

Project ECHO is modeled after a step at the institute of University of New Mexico that connects rural patients to rural providers through telemedicine. Project ECHO previously concentrated on care for patients with hepatitis C.

Under the legislation, which moves to the U.S. House that has a companion bill, Project ECHO now will extend across the rural areas of nation to serve a wide variety of healthcare requirements. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) sponsored the bill.

Project ECHO will utilize videoconferencing technology to link specialists with rural primary care providers or rural providers. Weekly “teleECHO clinics” will combine didactic teaching (ways to better manage work) with mentoring and case-based learning, in accordance to a statement from Hatch.

These clinics, or lectures, could cover such areas as treatments for several diseases, offering behavioral health treatment in rural areas, and making improvements in public health interventions like HIV and tuberculosis.

The aim, in accordance to Hatch, is to increase expert knowledge among rural providers while giving a network of assistance, helping the provider retention rate, decreasing isolation and offering more access to specialists.

The legislation needs the Department of Health and Human Services to assess if Project ECHO improves the quality of care, and calls for the Government Accountability Office to assess increased efficiencies and cost savings via the program.

“We are now one step closer to supporting new ways to train health providers and deliver health care,” Sen. Schatz stated in a statement. “Technology is modifying and changing the way medical professionals connect with each other and their sufferers. Our bill capitalizes on this technology to give health experts in hard-to-reach areas the specialized training they need and assist them to reach more patients.