ECHO India Strengthens the Public Healthcare System in India by Capacity Building of over 2,00,000 Healthcare Professionals in the Battle Against the COVID-19 Pandemic
New Delhi: ECHO India has partnered with premier government healthcare institutions in its efforts to strengthen the emergency response to COVID-19 with consistent capacity building programs for healthcare professionals including doctors, nurses, ASHA workers and paramedics. The Echo model worldwide harnesses its tele mentoring outreach to upskill healthcare professionals by conducting virtual training sessions with their partners.
AIIMS session with annotated map
To deal with the challenges posed by the outbreak, AIIMS, Delhi worked in conjunction with ECHO India to conduct a national session on ventilatory management of COVID-19 training over 5000 healthcare professionals. The virtual training session enabled doctors across the country to better manage COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory issues. Along with its partners, ECHO India has reached out to over 10,000 doctors and Red Cross volunteers spread across the nation.
Tamil Nadu ECHO session
Dr. (Col) Kumud Rai, Chairman ECHO India, emphasized, “The COVID-19 pandemic needed quick response and along with our partners we have been able to get into action to grow our outreach to the Public Healthcare Professionals and system in India. Indian healthcare environment provides a one-of-a-kind opportunity for the adoption of the ECHO model. The need for specialty care in India, especially in rural settings, is substantial and growing. System-wide integration of Project ECHO offers a solution that can benefit the entire population.”
ECHO India partners including Piramal Swasthya, AIIMS Delhi, Hospital for Mental Health, Ahmedabad, NIMHANS Bangalore, SGPGI, Lucknow leveraged the ECHO platform to train more than 12000 healthcare professionals in March.
ECHO India is also supporting Central and State government bodies in managing the emergency response to COVID-19 pandemic. The Government of Delhi, National Health Mission of Punjab, State TB Office of Assam, and most notably, National Health Mission of Maharashtra are already leveraging ECHO platform to train healthcare professionals, admin staff and frontline workers. With the highest number of COVID-19 cases, NHM Maharashtra has harnessed the ECHO model to conduct over 100 virtual training sessions so far.
ECHO India’s tele mentoring platform allows the dissemination of knowledge and best practices through its virtual network of 31 active hubs running 49 programs across 20 different focus areas. The sessions are attended by doctors, technicians, primary healthcare workers and other medical staff spread across 55 cities in India.
As on date, the ECHO India platform has facilitated COVID-19 specific virtual trainings of close to 2 lac participants over 513 sessions.
