The goal is to improve and expedite care to patients who might otherwise have to wait for long periods or travel great distances to see specialists.  Since the project was launched at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque 10 years ago, it has provided about 57,000 hours of CMEs for participants, Modern Healthcare magazine reports. 
 
Project ECHO usually pays the clinicians’ medical centers for their time and is trying to negotiate with commercial insurers to have them pay part of the salaries of specialists who provide consultations.
 
Ochsner Health System in New Orleans and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are interested in replicating Project ECHO’s teaching model and the U.S. Army Medical Command in the U.S. Defense Department began working with the project two years ago to improve pain management in the VA and DOD.
 
Ochsner expects to pay a total of $15,000 to set up large screens and video-conferencing capabilities it will need to connect remotely with other medical centers.