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t m c » p u l s e | m a y 2 0 1 5 28 A fter a litany of routine tests in 2012, John Rocks heard news he never expected: "You have hepatitis C." Rocks learned he was infected with the virus after being treated for high blood pressure. With no insurance, his options were limited—until a chance encounter at a local doctor's office led him to CHI St. Luke's Health-Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center's new telehealth program, Project ECHO. Project ECHO seeks to increase the accessibility of quality health care by allowing Baylor St. Luke's experts to use video conferencing to mentor and train providers in communities throughout Texas, as well as a number of communi- ties in Louisiana. "Project ECHO originally started at the University of New Mexico," said Norman Sussman, M.D., director of Project ECHO, and associate profes- sor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. "The founder, Sanjeev Arora, M.D., faced a problem that many of us in medical centers face—getting access to patients who are underserved in receiving the best health care in terms of distance, finance and capability." When Sussman and his colleagues became aware of the project, they knew Baylor St. Luke's would be an ideal place to begin their own Project ECHO to better treat patients suffering from illnesses, like hepatitis C, that often require specialist care. Tracking down those patients with hepatitis C was not a difficult task. Wayne Gosbee, outreach coordinator at Baylor St. Luke's, had been providing free hepatitis C screen- ing to patients for years. It was the next step—what to do when a patient tested positive—that proved complicated. Prior to the launch of Project ECHO a little over a year ago, patients diagnosed with hepatitis C, either by Gosbee or by their own primary care physicians, would be referred to the experts at Baylor St. Luke's for further treatment. Unfortunately, many of those patients would end up without further treatment, unable to make the trip to the Texas Medical Center for a variety of reasons, including a lack of funds, an inability to take time off of work, or even just sheer distance. "There was a gap in care," said physician assistant Renita Madu, one of the community care providers partici- pating in Project ECHO. "Hepatitis C or cirrhosis would just be something they had until they had to go to the ER." Now, thanks to Project ECHO, Gosbee has a host of providers through- out Texas and Louisiana to whom he can refer hepatitis C-positive patients. "Wayne finds the patients and says, 'Where do you live? Oh, there's a clinic nearby,' and he refers them there," said Sussman. "We communicate with that clinic and work on co-managing the patients. Number one, we're getting patients treated closer to home. There's no need to come here. Number two, the community providers become so sophisticated that they start to manage patients without us." That is the true beauty of Project ECHO. As Sussman and his colleagues emphasized, the goal is not to provide direct patient care, but to enhance Enhancing Community Care Project ECHO, a new telehealth program at Baylor St. Luke's, is increasing access to quality health care by educating and empowering community providers One minute I thought I was dying, a year later I was cured of the disease. It's just a blessing. Amen for ECHO. — JOHN ROCKS Patient Cured of Hepatitis C through Project ECHO B y S h e a C o n n e l l y From left, Norman Sussman, M.D., director of Project ECHO, and patient John Rocks met for the first time after Rocks was cured of hepatitis C. Pictured with Renita Madu, the physician assistant who directly treated Rocks, and Project ECHO associate director Saira Khaderi, M.D.