Project ECHO 2024 Annual Report

From New Mexico to Côte d’Ivoire,

A Diabetes Specialist in Every Community

Founder's Message

Preventing the Most Preventable Deaths

Dear Friends,

More than two decades ago, we envisioned a world where everyone, everywhere, would have equitable access to quality health care. Thanks to you, the ECHO movement, this vision is being realized, and my gratitude for the work you do every day is boundless.

As we begin a new year, we’re honing our focus to ensure that we can meet the world’s ever-expanding challenges to improving health outcomes.

Maximizing ECHO’s Impact
In uncertain and tumultuous times like ours, I believe we must focus our efforts on doing the most we can with readily available resources. That is how I’m thinking about the future of Project ECHO. For many of the world’s most pressing health care challenges, we have.

Appreciatively,

Dr. Sanjeev Arora

Impact in 2024

ECHO By the Numbers

10.8 million patients

300,000 frontline workers mentored

Participants in 190 countries and areas

2,563 ECHO programs

Voices of ECHO Champions

Project ECHO is at the heart of our strategy to advance health care throughout Indonesia. By empowering our health care professionals with essential skills and broadening access to diagnosis and treatment, ECHO has already brought about significant improvements in managing breast and cervical cancer.

We deeply value the collaborative efforts through Project ECHO and are dedicated to expanding these initiatives to enhance care in numerous other areas, striving for better health outcomes for everyone.

Budi Gunadi Sadikin

Minister of Health, Indonesia

Project ECHO is a powerful, affordable and scalable approach to significantly strengthen health systems to serve marginalized populations in the Global South. Through their partnerships with governments, NGOs and global health organizations, ECHO is helping to address urgent health care priorities by strengthening health care workforces to meet the needs of remote and underserved communities all over the world.

Olivia Leland

Founder and CEO, Co-Impact

We used to do trainings in person. The problem was: even when the knowledge in the training is perfect, how were we going to take it to scale? We started deploying the ECHO Model to great success.

In partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, the work that we are trying to do is not just enabling partners and local programs to use ECHO effectively in general agricultural training, but looking at how we can use ECHO to truly change the system so that sustainable agriculture practices become widespread.

Sanjay Joshie

Head of Climate Change, Agriculture and Livelihoods, ECHO India

More than 75% of deaths in the Global South come from diseases that are preventable and treatable; Project ECHO is the most efficient way to build a global health workforce that can deliver quality care to those who need it the most.

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan

Chairperson, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation

A Letter from an ECHO Partner:

Dear ECHO Community,

828 million people worldwide, or 1 in 7. That’s the number of adults who are currently living with diabetes – a burden that has doubled, globally, in the past 30 years*.

The International Diabetes Federation calls it a “pandemic of unprecedented magnitude**.”

We have a critical shortage of endocrinologists (diabetes specialists): there is approximately 1 endocrinologist for every 5,000 people with diabetes in the United States***. Nearly 90% of people living with diabetes receive their care not from a specialist, but from frontline primary care clinicians

Upscaling local frontline clinicians to manage diabetes is the only way to significantly increase our capacity to meet the need. The ECHO Model has a critical role to play: there is substantial evidence the Model has been used to upskill these clinicians quickly, effectively, and it improves diabetes outcomes****.

When 10% of the population lives with diabetes and 1 in 4 heath care dollars are spent on diabetes, we, as an ECHO community, have an ethical commitment to invest more in diabetes related ECHOs*****.

As a champion for people living with diabetes, I am committed to supporting the ECHO movement. Currently, less than 1% of ECHO programming is diabetes related. Join me, and other clinicians and stakeholders, in stepping up to increase diabetes ECHO programming.

Together, using ECHO, we can change the course of this pandemic. Together, we can make a difference.

Sincerely,

Nicolas Cuttriss,
MD, MPH, FAAP, Founding Director of the ECHO Diabetes Action Network

*The Lancet

**International Diabetes Federation

***Stability Health

****Clinical Diabetes

*****American Diabetes Association

39 New ECHO Programs Launched in New Mexico

Headquartered in Albuquerque, Project ECHO supported our home state through 65 programs improving health and education access for all New Mexicans.


Always At The Ready

With more than two decades of growth across the United States, the ECHO network has become foundational to national efforts in public health and health care workforce resilience.


A Message from our Global South Leaders

Dear ECHO Community,

Across the Global South, ECHO is impacting the communities of greatest need through our locally led offices and network of partners. This year, the ECHO movement has upskilled and empowered thousands of health care workers across Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America to deliver high-quality care in resource-limited settings.

Our partner network is keeping frontline health care workers up-to-date on the latest mpox developments, getting low-cost screenings for women s cancers to the most remote communities, building workforce capacity to address the growing mental health crisis and much more.

Dr. (Col) Kumud Rai

Chairperson & Managing Trustee
ECHO India

Dr. Caroline Kisia

Africa Director
Project ECHO

Meeting the Most Critical Community Needs

With a newly appointed Africa director and her Nairobi-based team, Dr. Caroline Kisia is shepherding the expansion of ECHO programming and strategic partnerships. This growth is bolstered by regional Superhub teams in Cote d’Ivoire and Zambia, who train and support new ECHO partners.


Furthering Our Impact

Thanks to our regional Superhubs, there are ECHO partners in more than 20 countries in Latin America. In 2024, these local leaders provided seven Partner Launch Trainings for 36 organizations in Spanish and Portuguese.


Significant Markers of Success

This year, our ECHO partners focused on strengthening in-country networks and supporting local adoption of the ECHO Model.


Bridging Sectors and States

Building on 15 years of successful partnerships to improve health outcomes, ECHO India focused on growing mentorship and training for frontline health workers to identify, diagnose and treat noncommunicable diseases with the potential early interventions, including: cardiac health, cervical cancer, diabetes and respiratory health.


An ECHO of Hope

Hear Her Story:

Judy Wanyoike (Nairobi), a patient who lost hope in the face of steep financial, logistical & social challenges to treatment.

About 90% of cervical cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries. They don’t have to. If detected and treated early, cervical cancer is curable. Using the ECHO Model, our partners in Kenya are sharing best practices with providers in screening and treating cervical cancer – and their support goes beyond just medications. Today, Judy has fully recovered, in part, thanks to an ECHO-trained health advocate who supported her recovery journey by helping her navigate those challenges.

“Cervical cancer is almost 100% preventable through the HPV vaccine, routine screening and appropriate follow-up treatment,” says Caroline Kisia, director of ECHO Africa. “Project ECHO is a critical intervention that assures these essential tools, such as the recently approved, single-dose HPV vaccine, actually reach patients throughout Africa.”

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