Project ECHO
Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes
Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) transforms the way rural, underserved communities learn and share knowledge. Coordinated by Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and the Illinois Health and Hospital Association, the SIU ECHO provides a virtual network for experts to mentor and share their medical expertise.
Why join?
As an ECHO participant, you'll acquire new skills and competencies to better manage patients with complex health conditions. You'll also become part of a growing national community of health care providers dedicated to expanding healthcare access, reducing disparities, improving quality, safety and efficiency, and promoting consistency in care and practice. The ECHO Model uses technology to leverage scare resources, share best practices and teach participants how to better evaluate and monitor outcomes.
Participants can also earn continuing medical education credits.
Up to 8 for the Hypertension ECHO and up to 10 for the Opioid ECHO.
What is Project ECHO?
Originally launched in 2003 at the University of New Mexico Health Science Center, Project ECHO has grown into a national model of telementoring that addresses more than 100 complex health conditions. The ECHO modelTM does not provide care to patients, but, rather, it provides front-line clinicians with the knowledge and support they need to treat patients with challenging conditions, including opioid addiction and hypertension.
The SIU Asthma ECHO is a free, virtual continuing-education program connecting healthcare providers, administrators, and regional partners to improve asthma care and reduce hospital admissions and readmissions.
Using Project ECHO’s multipoint videoconferencing, best-practice protocols, and case-based learning model, participants engage in short didactics, real case presentations, and shared recommendations led by asthma experts.
The curriculum includes CDC EXHALE strategies, asthma pathology, environmental and seasonal triggers (such as smoke, pollen, and wildfires), emergency-response and linkage-to-care planning after acute episodes, pediatric and school-based support, respiratory infections, treatment options and medications, self-management education, and advocacy topics.
With accreditation across multiple professions—including physicians, nurses, social workers, clinical psychologists, counselors, dietitians/nutrition counselors, and nursing-home administrators—participants earn continuing-education credits based on attendance, all while joining a growing network of providers working collaboratively to improve regional asthma outcomes.
The Hypertension ECHO at SIU School of Medicine is a virtual education series designed to help health-care professionals enhance their ability to accurately diagnose and manage hypertension, including risk-stratifying patients and effectively controlling blood pressure, especially in cases of severe elevations.
The curriculum covers clinically essential topics such as hypertension basics, therapeutic diuretics, non-diuretic antihypertensive drugs, complications of antihypertensive therapy, management strategies for severe blood pressure elevations, and the latest American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) blood-pressure guidelines.
Participation gives clinicians the opportunity to discuss complex hypertension cases with a specialty panel, all via videoconference, meaning no travel is required. Participants can earn up to 8 continuing-education credits for completing the series.
The ECHO aims to improve behavioral health care for patients by providing health care providers, administrators, and executives insights on treating patients with behavioral health issues, learning harm reduction techniques, signs and symptoms of behavioral health issues, differences in diagnoses, as well as screening tools.
The SIU Opioid ECHO, coordinated by the SIU School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and funded in part by the Illinois Department of Human Services, is a free monthly virtual program held the third Wednesday of each month to expand provider expertise in opioid-use-disorder treatment.
Bringing together prescribers, behavioral-health professionals, and community partners, the program follows Project ECHO’s tele-mentoring model in which each one-hour session features a brief didactic, a case presentation, and group recommendations from psychiatrists and addiction specialists.
The curriculum covers medication-assisted treatment essentials, complications of opioid medications, the neurobiology of addiction, psychiatric comorbidities relevant to opioid care, pain-management alternatives, strategies for treating relapsing or aggressive patients, compassionate opioid tapering, and nutrition considerations in opioid recovery.
Participants can earn up to eight continuing-education credits across multiple professions, and the program aims to build a connected network of trained providers dedicated to improving access to evidence-based opioid-addiction treatment across the region.
The Memory and Aging ECHO, offered by SIU School of Medicine’s Dale and Deborah Smith Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment, is a monthly virtual education forum for health-care professionals that focuses on memory disorders, dementia, and aging, offering expert-led discussions on key topics and practical dementia care for patients and caregivers.
Each session uses a case-based learning format (typically a brief didactic segment followed by case presentations) and is held once a month, allowing clinicians — including those in rural or underserved areas — to connect with a specialized team at SIU Medicine.
The 2025–2026 schedule includes sessions such as “Capacity Assessment in Dementia,” “Stroke’s Connection to Vascular Dementia,” “Behavioral Symptoms in Dementia,” and “Benzodiazepines and Opioids Linked to Increased Risk of Dementia.”
Participants who qualify may earn continuing-education credits: physicians can receive 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™, and nurses or other licensed professionals can receive a CE contact hour or CE hour, depending on their credentials.
SIU Medicine’s Community Health Worker ECHO program uses Project ECHO’s “All Teach, All Learn” virtual model to train, support, and expand the skills of both new and experienced CHWs as they serve as vital liaisons between healthcare, social services, and the community.
The CHW 101 course builds foundational competencies in public health, social determinants of health assessment, communication and cultural competence, capacity building, community outreach, chronic conditions, mental and emotional health, trauma-informed care, motivational interviewing, service coordination, navigating health and social-service systems, health policy, professional boundaries, and safety and legal issues.
Higher-level offerings such as CHW 102, CHW 201, and Chronic Health for CHWs provide additional training in clinical settings, case management, reintegration work, lifestyle medicine, pharmacology basics, substance misuse, leadership, coaching, insurance navigation, and chronic-disease education.
Across all levels, participants learn in a supportive virtual community with peers, develop practical skills to improve patient engagement, and gain tools to strengthen community health outcomes, with certificates available upon completion of course requirements.
The SUD Resilient and Responsive Communities ECHO will consist of interactive learning sessions that explore Substance Use Disorder (SUD) in the context of community strengths, discussing how different communities are becoming more responsive and resilient to the addiction-related challenges faced by loved ones and neighbors through actual case presentations.
This series is designed not only for SUD professionals but also for people in recovery, people who use drugs, friends, family members, employers, and allies who want to learn and share compassionate, strength-based strategies for decreasing drug harm and encouraging recovery.
The ECHO aims to connect behavioral health practitioners throughout the state of Illinois in order to reduce the silo-effect on providers, share lived experience, and assist each other in navigating challenging cases.
ECHO calendar
Need more information?
If you need more details about any program, please reach out to our team for more.