Christine Bernsten Discusses Health Share of Oregon's Involvement With Project ECHO

Investing in Project ECHO allowed Health Share to offer continuing education for providers, and many of them now say they enjoy participating in the program, said Christine Bernsten, senior manager of delivery systems transformation for Health Share of Oregon.

Transcript (slightly modified)

How did Health Share of Oregon get involved with Project ECHO?

So when CCOs were initially created, we received funding from the Oregon Health Authority to invest in transformative projects, and one of the projects that we initially invested in was called Project ECHO. Because we really saw this as a unique technology and model to link specialists with primary care and be able to provide education in a really accessible way around critical issues for our patient population.

Was there any provider trepidation with getting involved with Project ECHO?

So the providers that participate choose to participate, and they have an incentive of receiving the access to the specialists as well as an hour of free CME for every session that they participate in, so that’s been a nice and easy way to engage people. And I think once people do participate and get involved with this cohort of other providers, they really see the value of the education that they’re getting and they really enjoy participating once they get involved with it.