Project ECHO interprofessional telementoring: Using a novel case-based approach for building the U.S Public Health Service clinical response in pain and substance use disorder

The opioid overdose crisis is a US public health emergency that caused over an estimated 93,000 deaths in 2020. To build the clinical capacity of the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service (USPHS), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Prevention (CDC) collaborated with Project ECHO in pain and substance use disorder (SUD). The purpose of this article is to describe the evaluation results of an interprofessional telementoring program using novel clinical vignettes. Interprofessional Project ECHO Pain faculty and the CDC recruited a diverse group of 163 USPHS clinical officers to join one (of two) 16-week, hour-long ECHO Opioid and Pain (OP) telementoring sessions. The structured curriculum included chronic pain, substance use, harm reduction and mental health-related didactics, as well as novel clinical vignettes. During this OP telementoring training, novel clinical vignettes were used successfully to train USPHS officers in an interprofessional “all-teach, all-learn” team-based, interdisciplinary learning environment. Over 30% (n = 48) of the USPHS officers attended at least 9 of the 16 sessions. Cohort surveys demonstrated that participants (n = 26) self-reported significantly increased knowledge regarding chronic pain, SUD, and mental health issues when compared to baseline. Focus group participants (n = 41) noted increased self-efficacy in clinical skills and compassion regarding patient care. This interprofessional ECHO training using novel clinical vignettes demonstrates the potential to increase clinical response capacity in pain management and SUD treatment by improving both knowledge and self-efficacy among participants.