Addiction Workforce Gaps: Using Project ECHO to Engage Rural Providers and Medical Students

This session will share the experience of two family and addiction physicians who have helped set up, train, and support more than 50 buprenorphine providers in outstate Minnesota, with ongoing mentoring via Project ECHO. The Minnesota Department of Human Services challenged their successful controlled substance stewardship and addiction treatment program, based in a rural primary care medical home setting, to replicate and share best practices throughout the state by hosting and facilitating a rural-based addiction Project ECHO. Their unique facilitation location and style altered the model to not only educate primary care but also created a continuous mentoring community of collaboration. The evolution of their ECHO included becoming an ECHO highlighting both national and local expertise. Featured presenters include: social workers, nurses, toxicologists, addiction providers, as well as more nationally known speakers and experts. The same team then took an innovative approach in an effort to educate students early in their medical careers, both for medical and physician assistant students. The goal of these student-focused ECHOs is to ensure adequate knowledge of addiction topics in hopes they will choose to care for patients with addiction as they enter practices at the start of their careers. Throughout the last year, their program has been studied to determine impact and cost-effectiveness, both demonstrating significant positive results in prescribing, inclusive care and addiction treatment throughout rural Minnesota compared to non-involved matched cohorts. The newest approach will include a pilot of family medicine residency programs, as well.