New Presentation: Increasing Capacity for Interprofessional Education Across a University via Project ECHO-Geriatrics

In 2023, Project ECHO is celebrating 20 years of disseminating knowledge in rural and under resourced areas. Founded and headquartered at The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque, N.M., Project ECHO empowers local community providers to improve the well-being of people in New Mexico and around the world. At the first MetaECHO conference since 2019, the global ECHO community joined forces to share, dream, and plan. One presentation was from our NW GWEC and our Medical Director of Project ECHO-Geriatrics, Katherine Bennett, MD.

Dr. Bennett presented on her Geriatric Academic Career Award (GACA) project where she partnered with the University of Washington’s Center for Health Sciences Interprofessional Education, Research, and Practice to create an Age-Friendly Healthcare Interprofessional Training Program. In this pilot, she demonstrated that it is feasible to engage health professions students in an existing Project ECHO for interprofessional collaborative practice training and that doing so improves not only interprofessional training but also content-specific, age-friendly care competencies. Given its initial success, the program will continue. ECHOs are well positioned to rapidly expand the capacity for interprofessional training.