For two years, the Louisiana Mississippi Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (LAMS-GWEP) has been facilitating an unique educational model to train-up physicians, nurses, social workers, and allied health professionals in geriatrics.
ECHO stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes and there are 1,379 ECHO “hubs” throughout the world. The LAMS-GWEP hub offers an hour of education on the third Wednesday of every month on a specific topic to highlight best practices in geriatrics. Previous topics have included “How Do We Make Surgery Safe for Older Adults?,” “How PT/OT Helps Older Adults,” and each December the hub concludes the year with “All I want for Christmas is ‘What Matters Most.’”
What makes the “ECHO” a unique educational model is the motto of “Teach All, Learn All.” While there is a subject matter expert who lectures via Zoom for 20 minutes followed by a case presentation of a real (de-identified) patient, the synergy happens after these components. The remainder of the time allows for discussing that patient using the 4Ms framework (What Matters Most, Mentation, Medication, and Mobility). The case is also an opportunity to ‘teach all’ as the audience can offer suggestions, assisting the case presenter with their real patient. After the discussion, audience members have time to explain a challenging case they may want help with. Can you see how we are all teaching and all learning?
The hour goes by quickly and by the end of each LAMS-GWEP ECHO, everyone is excited – the result of an active discussion by voice and in the Zoom chat. Audience members who are physicians and nurses can claim continuing education (CE) credits; when the topic touches social work, social workers can claim CE credit. LAMS-GWEP invites you to join us monthly to ‘teach all, learn all’ in geriatrics.
For more information about the LAMS-GWEP ECHO, contact Matthew Estrade, MA, MBA, Project Manager, at [email protected].
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Department of Health and Human Services provided financial support for Louisiana-Mississippi Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program (LAMS-GWEP) under Grant #U1QHP53040‐01‐00. The award provided 100% of total costs and totaled $4.9 million. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.