Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: Dec 8, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 25, 2025
Creation of the ECHO Idaho Podcast: A Tutorial and Pilot Assessment
ABSTRACT
Background:
The Project ECHO model has been successful in reaching healthcare providers in rural and underserved areas and positively impacting clinical practice. ECHO Idaho, a replication partner, has developed programming is a partner program that has increased knowledge and confidence of healthcare professionals throughout the state of Idaho. Although the ECHO model has a demonstrated ability to recruit, educate, and train healthcare providers, barriers to attending Project ECHO continuing education (CE) programs remain. The asynchronous nature of podcasts could be used as an innovative medium to help address barriers to CE access that healthcare professionals face. The ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast was developed to increase CE accessibility to rural and frontier providers, while upscaling their knowledge of and competence to treat and assess substance use disorders, pain, and behavioral health conditions.
Objective:
This paper describes the creation and preliminary assessment of the ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast.
Methods:
Podcast episodes consisted of interviews with individuals as well as didactic lectures. Audio from these recordings were edited for content and length and then professionally reviewed by subject matter experts (e.g., featured episode speakers). Target audiences consisted of healthcare providers and community members interested in behavioral health and substance use disorders. Metrics on podcast listeners were assessed using Soundcloud’s RSS feed, continuing education survey completion, and iECHO.
Results:
The ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” inaugural season published 14 episodes with 624 minutes of CE material. The podcast series received a total of 2,441 listens from individuals in 14 different cities across Idaho, and 63 healthcare providers listened and claimed CE credits.
Conclusions:
We provide preliminary evidence that podcasts can be used to provide healthcare providers with opportunities to access CE material. Healthcare providers listened to and claimed CE credits from the ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast. Project ECHO programs should consider creating podcasts as an additional platform for disseminating ECHO material.
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