Project ECHO Learning Model Utilized to Educate Clinicians About Migraine Prevention & Treatment

Project ECHO Learning Model Utilized to Educate Clinicians About Migraine Prevention & Treatment
Contact: Matt Miller
Phone: 646-336-6495
Fax: 646-336-6497
Email: [email protected]

NEW YORK (1/16/2023) – DKBmed LLC is partnering with Project ECHO, inventors of the ECHO model in which participants engage in a virtual community with their peers where they share support, guidance and feedback, to create ECHO Migraine: Helping Community Clinicians Improve Outcomes to close gaps in the care of patients with migraines. ECHO Migraine is a small group educational initiative that will bring together clinicians with specialist mentors experienced in the diagnosis and management of migraines. Since 2019, DKBmed has developed nearly 100 ECHO-style programs for clinicians treating hepatitis B, severe asthma, and HIV in underserved communities.

More information on this program can be found at echo.dkbmed.com/programs/3

Although migraines are the third most prevalent condition in the world, only 4% of patients experiencing these chronic, debilitating headaches seek care from healthcare providers. Among migraine sufferers who seek treatment, up to 56% of report “inadequate migraine relief” from traditional acute treatments while roughly 3 in 7 will experience recurrence within 24 hours of using medication. Unfortunately, patients are not being offered treatments that effectively treat acute migraine or that actually prevent migraine attacks.

“Because of their proximity to patients, primary care physicians are probably most instrumental in efforts to diagnose and properly manage migraines,” notes Lesley Simon, Medical Director at DKBmed. “That being said, these care providers and many other specialists simply don’t have the knowledge of how to diagnose migraine and how best to treat people who have this chronic condition. Medical students, over the course of their education, receive an average of just three hours of preclinical and clinical training on headache diagnosis and management.”

The ECHO Migraine program is designed to expand clinicians’ ability to treat patients with migraine. Participants in the initiative will be assigned into 1 of 10 groups consisting of 20-25 clinicians each and will complete regularly scheduled online activities using the ECHO learning model. Topics will include:

  • Reviewing the burden of migraine, including its impact on health care systems and patient-related quality of life
  • Identifying criteria for migraine
  • Discussing the limitations of traditional acute therapies for migraine
  • Assessing the efficacy and safety of approved and emerging therapies for patients with migraine, including abortive and preventive treatments

Disclosure of Support

ECHO Migraine: Helping Community Clinicians Improve Outcomes is supported by an independent educational grant from Biohaven Pharmaceuticals and Lundbeck.

About the ECHO Model

Project ECHO, which stands for Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes, is a learning model first devised by health sciences faculty at the University of New Mexico. Inspired by medical rounds during residencies, this “all teach, all learn” framework facilitates the efficient dissemination of ideas among peers. During sessions, participants and subject-matter experts tackle complex cases in small-group, virtual settings and engage in a “continuous loop of learning, mentoring, and peer support.” Since being developed in the early 2000s, the ECHO model has been evaluated by staff at the world’s most prestigious medical journals. Learn more about the ECHO learning model, click here.

About DKBmed

DKBmed is an integrated continuing medical education company operated by an experienced team of medical education experts. DKBmed provides health care professionals with effective medical education that closes identified knowledge and practice gaps to improve patient health.

Working with accredited providers and other partners, DKBmed develops innovative educational programs and quality improvement (QI) initiatives, bringing new learning methodologies to the CME landscape. DKBmed has become a leader in QI in the independent medical education space with QI projects in Pain Management, HIV, Depression, Influenza, and Diabetic Eye Disease. DKBmed was also an early adopter of case scenarios with real patients and live actors, TED/DKBmed Talks, 3D animation, webcasts, podcasts, and smart phone applications for clinicians and patients. These forward-thinking approaches enable health care professionals to learn and access educational programs in a manner that is most convenient and appropriate for them.

DKBmed’s programs are accessible through the company’s website (www.dkbmed.com). They reach more than 150,000 health care professionals in primary care and in a variety of specialties and disease states including: HIV, COVID-19, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, influenza, dermatology, retinal disease, rheumatoid arthritis, COPD, asthma, multiple sclerosis, pain management, depression and viral hepatitis (HBV, HCV) and oncology.