FAQs about Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care

Answers to popular questions we get asked. You might also wonder about the cost – that’s easy! There’s absolutely no cost to health practitioners in Ontario who qualify and register.

1. How does Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound work?

The ECHO model™ links specialists and the resource team (the Hub) with primary care community-based partners (Spokes) – i.e. a hub and spoke model. The online sessions are 2-hours weekly and include a short educational lecture, followed by case-based learning from the participants’ own patients. The combination – live online sessions and in-person skills training – is a way to build health care capacity.

The resource team puts together the content of the ECHO educational lectures. Participants present de-identified cases of their own patients during the live online sessions. Participants also contribute to case discussions and evaluation surveys. They also receive continuing education/ continuous professional development credits (CE/CPD).

Through the ECHO model, community providers and specialists learn from each other, acquire knowledge, skills, increase competency and build a strong community of practice. Participants become part of a supportive community of practice and an inter-professional team.

2. What will participants learn from Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound?

Wound and skin care issues, including:

  • Diabetic foot ulcers
  • Pressure injuries (ulcers)
  • Venous leg ulcers
  • Common dermatological issues related to wounds e.g. hidradenitis suppurativa

3. What is the curriculum based on?

4. What is required of participants?

A. Time: Weekly 2-hour sessions: 15 minute educational lecture, followed by around 90 minutes of patient case discussions. There will also be opportunities to attend in-person ‘boot camp’ skills trainings a few times per year, to be held at various locations in Ontario.

B. Internet Access and a Webcam Enabled Device: Participants must attend the online sessions that will be offered via Zoom technology, a free online platform accessible from most desktops, laptops and smartphones. A webcam is highly encouraged as the learning experience will be highly visual and interactive. Participants will also be encouraged to download supplementary reading and material that will be made available online.

C. Commitment: As space is limited and demand is high, we ask that interested persons who sign-up commit to attending the majority of the online sessions and sign a written statement of collaboration. We also ask that participants act respectfully towards each other and members of the resource team.  Further, participants should ensure that there is no sharing of identifiable information regarding the patients of the cases presented.

5. What costs are involved?

ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound is provided at NO COST to Ontario based health care providers.

6. What are the benefits for health care providers?

  • Enhanced care for patients with skin and wound care issues
  • Certificate of Attendance, if a regular participant
  • Continuing Medical Education (CME) Credits awarded by Queen’s University
  • Being part of an interprofessional community of practice

7. How to sign up?

Sign up by filling out this 5-minute Application form.

8. When does the Project start?

Sessions run every Wednesday, starting September 7th 2022. We are offering a total of 64 sessions of tele-ECHO for acute and chronic wounds. These will be held in 2 annual cycles.

9. How will participants be selected?

Health care providers with an interprofessional team and working in health care organizations within Ontario are welcome to apply; however, space in Project ECHO Ontario Wound and Skin is limited.

Preference is given to health care providers who can participate in the online sessions as part of an interprofessional team, who are in underserviced areas, or who often treat First Nations, Metis, and Inuit people living in Ontario.

10. How can I learn more?

The Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care ABOUT page has more information about the project, the international movement, the Ontario Superhub, and the other 15 Project ECHO Ontario Hubs.

We also post updates on Twitter: @ECHOWound

A model that improves health care capacity and access

How are WoundPedia, Queen’s University and NSWOCC working together to improve wound care in Ontario?

Wounds are a devastating, costly and increasingly prevalent health issue. Wounds can affect anyone; however, people living with diabetes (over 1 million Ontarians) and seniors (2.1 million Ontarians) are particularly vulnerable. Many people in Ontario live with a chronic wound for years before it is properly diagnosed and treated.

Wound care requires an interprofessional approach. However, most patients with wounds are managed by family physicians, nurse practitioners or home care nurses operating without the support of an interprofessional team. Though well-intentioned, these individuals typically have little specialized skin and wound care training. Medical and other health care professional schools have limited wound care curriculum time. Additionally, there are no licensure requirements for wound care knowledge in Canada.

Wait times for interprofessional wound clinics (few in Canada) vary widely across Ontario’s regions (Abrahamyan et al. 2015). Poor access to wound care expertise has consequences. For example, one can observe the wide variation in the diabetic foot amputation rate per 100,000 Ontarians with diabetes in the North West LHIN (368 per 100,000), where access to expertise is quite limited, with that in Mississauga Halton LHIN (89 per 100,000) (Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and Mondal 2013). However, even the Mississauga Halton LHIN amputation rate is higher than ideal and could be significantly improved.

The ECHO model is not the same as telemedicine, where the main goal is to improve ACCESS by using technology to bridge the distance. The ECHO model improves capacity and access simultaneously.

The ECHO model was created in 2003 by Dr Arora, a hepatologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Using multipoint video conferencing in an academic/community design, weekly interprofessional rounds connect remote practitioners who present their patients, receive guidance from the academic ECHO specialist team, and then treat their patients themselves. Outcomes, published in peer-reviewed journals were identical in the rural/prison communities and academic clinics, and demonstrated fewer adverse events in the rural/prison communities (Arora et al. 2010; Arora, Kalishman, et al. 2011; Arora, Thornton, et al. 2011).

Providers who participate in these programs report increased knowledge, empathy, comfort and self-efficacy in dealing with these chronic conditions, and have become consultants for other providers in their geographic areas (Arora, Kalishman, et al. 2011). ECHO utilizes a “learning by doing” and “guided practice” model. Cases are sent privately and securely using standardized intake forms.

The ECHO model uses a HUB and SPOKE structure, where the hub (i.e. the interprofessional team) connects weekly via video conferencing with the spokes (i.e. the primary care providers) who present and discuss challenging cases from their practices and develop care plans which reflect evidence-based best practice. This allows spokes to become experts. In addition, they often become local resources for their colleagues, hence increasing system capacity and providing patients with evidence-informed care in their own communities.  

Woundpedia , Queen’s University and NSWOCC share a single vision: optimal wound care for all Ontarians. As Hub partners for Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care, our goal is to increase interprofessional coordinated and integrated wound care capacity across Ontario.


References

Abrahamyan, Lusine, Josephine Wong, Ba’ Pham, Gina Trubiani, Steven Carcone, Nicholas Mitsakakis, Laura Rosen, Valeria E. Rac, and Murray Krahn. 2015. “Structure and Characteristics of Community-Based Multidisciplinary Wound Care Teams in Ontario: An Environmental Scan: Community Wound Care Teams in Ontario.” Wound Repair and Regeneration 23 (1): 22–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/wrr.12241.

Arora, Sanjeev, Summers Kalishman, Denise Dion, Dara Som, Karla Thornton, Arthur Bankhurst, Jeanne Boyle, et al. 2011. “Partnering Urban Academic Medical Centers and Rural Primary Care Clinicians to Provide Complex Chronic Disease Care.” Health Affairs 30 (6): 1176–1184.

Arora, Sanjeev, Summers Kalishman, Karla Thornton, Denise Dion, Glen Murata, Paulina Deming, Brooke Parish, et al. 2010. “Expanding Access to Hepatitis C Virus Treatment-Extension for Community health care Outcomes (ECHO) Project: Disruptive Innovation in Specialty Care.” Hepatology 52 (3): 1124–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.23802.

Arora, Sanjeev, Karla Thornton, Glen Murata, Paulina Deming, Summers Kalishman, Denise Dion, Brooke Parish, et al. 2011. “Outcomes of Treatment for Hepatitis C Virus Infection by Primary Care Providers.” New England Journal of Medicine 364 (23): 2199–2207.

Three standout features: Is this the right opportunity for you?

Are you a health care provider in Ontario who wants to ensure patients with wounds are treated safely and effectively?

In 2016, Dr Gary Sibbald and three other project members travelled to the University of New Mexico to attend a three-day Project ECHO Immersion session. This was the start of an ongoing relationship with Project ECHO Replication Team, and the orientation and training needed to successfully start Project ECHO® Ontario Skin and Wound Care.

You might be considering if the program is for you and your community of practice, so here are the top three features of the program to consider:

1. Targeted Needs Assessments

Assessments of needs and environmental resource scans are carried out to determine cognitive, affective, and psychomotor competencies of providers, individual and system needs related to skin and wound care and availability of evidence-based resources.

2. TeleECHO Curriculum

Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care is based on the established and highly successful International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC), NSWOCC Wound Care Institute and Wounds Canada courses, as well as the results from the evaluation questionnaires.

The IIWCC curriculum provides a comprehensive educational experience:

  1. Assess and critically review Best Practice Guidelines and summary documents related to wound care in key subject areas
  2. Integrate wound care principles by a self-directed learning program
  3. Demonstrate the application of best practices by developing an elective related to the learner’s everyday activities
  4. Develop wound care clinical skills

The current IIWCC modules are built on the scientific evidence outlined by best practice guidelines interpreted by an international faculty of wound care, education and research professionals both from academia and community wound care practice. These modules have been developed into Project ECHO Skin and Wound Care curriculum.

3. Continuing Medical Education Accreditation

ECHO participants who attend the weekly sessions and complete the evaluation, receive CME/CE credits for each session and a certificate of attendance at the end of each ECHO cycle.

Project ECHO Skin and Wound Care Tools

In addition to virtual sessions, these tools and resources are freely available for participants

1. Case Report Form

The Case Report Form standardizes case management and populates a wound care case ‘bank.’ This form incorporates the components of the Wound Bed Preparation paradigm.  Case Report Forms are reviewed in advance to ensure that no identifiable patient information is included.

2. TeleECHO Case Database

Deidentified patient cases presented at ECHO sessions are stored in a computerized data system that are accessible on the website.

3. Best Practice Enablers

Best Practice Enablers are summary tools used to condense practical knowledge efficiently.

4. Session Summaries

After each session, a summary of the discussion is prepared and sent to all participants via email. 

5. Evaluation Questionnaires

These questionnaires assess confidence in abilities, skills and knowledge, and are completed via a secure web-based survey.

6. Knowledge Tests

These evaluate the extent of iterative learning and the effect of knowledge networks. They are administered both before and after exposure to the ECHO model. CME credits or other types of educational credits (as determined) are documented for each participant.

Three questions about alignment with Ontario’s health priorities

How the project lines up the government’s plan for changing and improving Ontario’s health system

Innovations such as Project ECHO work in alignment with system priorities. The Project ECHO Skin and Wound Care team took a look at how we align with three major government health care initiatives.

Question 1

Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care has been in place since 2012 and centres on the commitment to put people and patients at the centre of the system by focusing on putting patients’ needs first. How are you doing that?

Answer: Improved access to co-ordinated, interprofessional chronic wound care will heal Ontarians faster, lowering the number of related emergency room visits, hospitalizations and amputations. The project will increase capacity among regional primary care providers and newly established interprofessional teams and sub-HUBs to improve access to the most appropriate care in the most appropriate place while decreasing costs.

Additionally, the ECHO model will help build regional expertise. The Hub, along with the expertise of the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC) faculty, will facilitate the development of distributed expertise that may potentially lead to SPOKES that can become regional Hubs.

Question 2

Health Quality Ontario is the go-to for advice and data and has the mandate to define health quality and health system improvement. How are you working with them?

Answer: Health Quality Ontario (HQO) recently developed Quality Standards for diabetic foot ulcers, pressure injuries and venous leg ulcers, as part of an Ontario-wide expert panel I co-chaired. This project will help the province-wide implementation of these Quality Standards.

Question 3

What about the Ministry-LHIN Wound Care Quality Standards Implementation Project?

Answer: The activities of the Project will inform this group and vice-versa. In partnership with the LHINs, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is working to engage with stakeholders on wound care, in system capacity review and planning, and to identity and fund training and education resources and fund new wound care devices. There’s also work being done to develop a performance monitoring and data/analytic framework.

Best practice guidelines ensure patients get the care they need

Bringing best practices together with an interprofessional approach sparks innovation in wound care

Project ECHO started in New Mexico in 2003, and today there are more than 220 hubs for more than 100 diseases and conditions in 31 countries. In Ontario alone, there are more than 300 community sites represented, and the newest hub, Project ECHO Skin and Wound Care, is the 16th tele-ECHO Hub.

The Project team is in regular contact with Dr Andrea Furlan and Dr Ruth Dubin, co-leads of Project ECHO Ontario Chronic Pain. In addition, Queen’s University, the educational experts for ECHO Ontario Chronic Pain, are important partners to Project ECHO Skin and Wound Care.

The project team has also been attending ECHO Ontario collaborative meetings and has been meeting regularly with the Project ECHO Mental Health team at CAMH.

Wound care best practice guidelines include:

  • Assessment and Management of Foot Ulcers for Persons with Diabetes
  • Assessment and Management of Pressure Injuries for the Interprofessional Team
  • Care Transitions
  • Developing and Sustaining Interprofessional Health Care
  • Facilitating Client-Centred Learning
  • Person- and Family-Centred Care
  • Strategies to Support Self-Management in Chronic Conditions: Collaboration with Clients

Each of these BPGs contributes to practice interventions and inform direct patient care as well as enable better interprofessional practice and integrated health care in relation to wound management, including diabetic foot ulcers, across the sectors.

Skin & Wound Care Boot Camps for Spokes

Bringing together regional skills and teams to increase system capacity

Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care two-day in-person “boot camp” sessions are available to registered members.

*Watch for updates: we will conduct several boot camps during 2022 and 2024 across the province.

Boot camp sessions are deeper dives into Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care topics. The boot camps are developed and delivered in collaboration with the regional Continuing Professional Development (CPD Offices), and relevant program partners to improve regional relevance and recruitment.

The benefits of boot camps are:

  • Expand the cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills of participants through direct observation and hands-on on skills training
  • Promote professional networking and stimulate referral patterns across many disciplines
  • Connect interprofessional teams for coordinated, integrated patient assessment with feedback from patient volunteers and faculty on the patient care plans and team process
  • Identify system barriers to optimal wound care
  • Collect and reflect on outcomes information for quality improvement

Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound boot camps will be conducted in a similar fashion to the patient day at the current International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC), that has been delivered at the Michener Institute since 1999. Even further value will be obtained by bringing together regional skills and teams in order to build regional referral patterns and increase system capacity.

A specialized curriculum and interprofessional approach

Here’s a curriculum example demonstrating the breadth of topics that will be covered

Project ECHO Ontario Skin and Wound Care curriculum is based on the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course (IIWCC). The IWCC is grounded in adult learning principles and designed for health care professionals with education and experience in the wound care field or related industry.

An example of the curriculum, set up as four sections (A thru D), each with 8 sessions, is below. To adapt to the specific needs of each cohort, there is some flexibility built into the curriculum; however, this gives you a good idea of the breadth of skin and wound care topics that are covered.

A. ADULT EDUCATION, WOUND BED PREPARATION, LOCAL WOUND CARE

A1. Adult Education and ECHO Basics

A2. Team Dynamics

A3. Navigating health care Systems

A4. Wound Bed Preparation holistic care paradigm (Sibbald et al. 2015)

A5. Treat the Cause – address the patient as a whole

A6. Patient Centered Concerns- pain, activities of daily living

A7. Healability- healable, non-healable, maintenance

A8. Local Wound Care – D.I.M.E.

  • Debridement, Infection/ Inflammation, Moisture Balance, Edge Effect

B. LEG AND FOOT ULCERS – INFECTION

Diabetic foot care and related foot ulcers

B1. Person with diabetes in general – Simplified 60-Second Screen, HbA1c, etc.

B2. Vascular Supply

B3. Infection: Surface Critical Colonization, Deep and Surrounding Infection

B4. Infection and the Diabetic Foot

B5. Plantar Pressure Redistribution

B6. Differential diagnosis of leg ulcers

B7. Venous and mixed Venous/ Arterial Ulcers

B8. Arterial and mixed Arterial/ Venous Ulcers

C. PRESSURE ULCERS, SKIN TEARS, MOISTURE ASSOCIATED SKIN DAMAGE, SKIN CARE

Pressure Ulcers

C1. The patient in general, Spinal Cord Injuries

C2. Classification of Pressure Ulcers and Differential Diagnosis

C3. Pressure Redistribution/ Shear

C4. Moisture, Nutrition, Mobility and other factors

C5. Skin Tears/ trauma

C6. Moisture Associated Skin Damage

Skin and Peristomal Care

C7.Skin integrity and principles of topical therapy

C8.Special considerations for Peristomal skin

D. SPECIALIZED WOUNDS

D1. Pilonidal sinus

D2. Hidradenitis Suppurativa

D3. Post-surgical wounds

D4. Burns and acute trauma

Palliative and malignant wounds

D5. Palliative wounds, skin changes at end of life

D6. Malignant wounds

D7. Lymphedema

D8. Acute Infections


More information about the International Interprofessional Wound Care Course can be found on WoundPedia.

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