ECHO Programs
ECHO® is a model for learning and guided practice that uses education to exponentially increase workforce capacity to improve access to best-practice care and reduce health disparities in communities, including rural, remote, and underserved settings. Check below for a listing of UT Health San Antonio ECHO programs.
Texas Developmental Screening and Surveillance (Tx DSS)
The Tx DSS ECHO connects subject matter experts and early childhood educators to increase their knowledge in developmental screening and early childhood intervention so that they can provide necessary care to children in their communities. UT Health San Antonio is partnering with the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and experts in the field to implement this ECHO program.
Chagas Disease
Chagas disease, an infection with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is endemic throughout the Americas. Often called a “silent killer”, this chronic disease can go undetected for years, resulting in irreversible damage or death. To address this, we have partnered with San Diego State University, Texas State University, and the South Coastal Area Health Education Center to relaunch our Chagas ECHO series for providers. This ECHO will build local capacity for screening, diagnosing, and managing Chagas Disease.
Hepatitis and HIV/Hepatitis Coinfection
This telementoring series will focus on mentoring health care workers on diagnosing, managing, treating, and caring for people with viral hepatitis or HIV/hepatitis coinfection. This series has been developed in partnership with the Center for Health Policy at University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, the Targeted Access Knowledge and Education on HIV for Health Professions Program (TAKE on HIV), HSC South Central AETC, and UT Health San Antonio South Central AETC.
ECHO de VIH
To address the ongoing need for best practices in providing HIV care to patients, we host sessions each Thursday of the month, in partnership with the UT Health San Antonio South Central AIDS Education and Training Center Program (AETC). The Spanish led sessions with live English interpretation include short didactics on topics related to HIV care followed by deidentified, case-presentations from participants who get mentorship from a multidisciplinary team of experts across the globe. Sessions are held on a cohort basis, May to October annually. Register through the UT Health San Antonio AETC website.
Dental Education Network for Texas (DENT)
In partnership with the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry, we launched a monthly series to support and educate primary oral health care providers in the delivery of quality and effective dental care for patients across the state of Texas. Sessions will include brief didactics followed by case presentations and interactive conversation with subject matter experts & Texas dental care providers. Free continuing educational credits are available to all attendees.
HIV ECHO
To strengthen community clinic capacity for delivering best-practice HIV care to underserved populations in Texas, we partnered with the UT Health San Antonio AIDS Education and Training Center Program (AETC) for a twice monthly HIV ECHO. Sessions include didactics, case presentations from local sites, and discussion with an interdisciplinary team made up of experts in infectious disease, pharmacy, psychiatry, and community health workers. Sessions are held on the second Monday and fourth Friday of each month, with occasional exceptions for holidays. Register through the UT Health San Antonio AETC website.
Through the Center for Substance Use Training and Telementoring (c-STAT) and in partnership with the UT Health San Antonio ECHO program, Be Well Texas offers an array of telementoring programming to provide high-quality SUD education and support to health, behavioral health, and public safety professionals.
TxRx ECHO (Medications for Substance Use Disorder)
The TxRx (pronounced “Tex-R-X”) ECHO program provides telementoring in utilizing medications to treat substance use disorders, including medications for alcohol, opioid, stimulants, and nicotine use disorders. This program targets prescribers, and other providers who support medication-assisted treatment services for patients. The purpose of this program is to build statewide capacity to expand the utilization of medications to treat substance use disorder.
Recovery Support Services Community of Practice (RSS)
The RSS ECHO creates a community of practice to support Texas-based Peers in delivering high-quality care to people in substance treatment settings or in recovery. This ECHO focuses on real-life cases and training that inform advocacy, reduce stigma, and build workforce capacity.
Harm Reduction
This ECHO introduces harm reduction strategies and approaches to prevent substance use-related overdoses, deaths, or other harmful health or mental health impacts. Learners will be exposed to evidence-based, emerging, and novel harm reduction practices. This ECHO program will emphasize reducing misinformation about harm reduction practices and combatting stigma towards people who use drugs.
Behavioral Health
The Behavioral Health ECHO will prepare behavioral health professionals to effectively screen, intervene, and refer (when necessary) clients with substance use disorders. The ECHO program will provide learners with a responsive community of practice continually available for didactic learning and group case consultation.
Recovery Science
Peer recovery support services (PRSS) are an established best practice to support the recovery processes of individuals with substance use disorders. However, there are important scientific gaps that remain to better understand the mechanisms underlying the efficacy and effectiveness of PRSS (Bassuk et al, 2016). This research-focused ECHO program will grow a diverse workforce skilled in conducting recovery science research to address these knowledge gaps.
Systems and Sustainability for SUD
The Systems and Sustainability for Substance Use Disorder (SUD) ECHO focuses on large-scale, systems-level opportunities and challenges to implementation and sustaining substance use-related services, be those screening, referral, or treatment practices. This ECHO will target healthcare and behavioral health leaders with the capacity to impact systems changes or influence those who do, as well as those with the responsibility to sustain their own systems of care.
Public Safety Solutions for SUD
Public Safety Solutions for SUD ECHO builds public safety professionals’ capacity to successfully respond to substance use and substance use disorders in their day-to-day work. Attendees will also learn how evidence-based approaches to behavioral health challenges can promote their wellness and reduce burnout.
Maternal Health ECHO
In collaboration with the Perinatal Psychiatry Access Network (PeriPAN), Maternal Health ECHO program is designed to equip perinatal healthcare providers with the necessary training, consultation, and support to enhance care delivery. This program seeks to bridge knowledge gaps, strengthen provider capacity, and improve maternal health outcomes across Texas. The program will include instruction in screening, interventions, care coordination, trauma-informed care, and other critical maternal health topics.
Previous ECHO Programs:
Behavioral Health Support
In partnership with the Center for Health Policy at UNTHSC, the Medical Technology and Resource Education Center (MTREC), and the Southwest Border AHEC, we launched a Behavioral Health Support ECHO to support the delivery of mental and behavioral health services in Uvalde, Texas. This ECHO was designed for health workers in Uvalde and the surrounding communities.
Building resilience of DACA recipients and Mixed-Status families in the face of Adversity
United We Dream (UWD) and the National Latino Psychological Association (NPLA) collaborated with our team to launch an ECHO series that addresses the importance of social support systems and offers guidance on how to create supportive groups in the face of COVID-19 and anti-immigrant policies. Sessions included an interdisciplinary team of mental health providers and community leaders who share experiences, tools, and resources.
Communicating COVID: ECHO for Community Health Workers
We partnered with Health Confianza for a series, Communicating COVID: ECHO for Community Health Workers (CHWs). This ECHO series was launched to build a learning community to share resources, partnerships, and strategies for compassionately and effectively communicating about COVID-19.
View series resources and recordings »
COVID 2.0: An Updated Health Literacy ECHO for Providers
In partnership with Health Confianza, we launched an updated COVID-19 Health Literacy ECHO bi-weekly series to share relevant, usable information about COVID-19 with local providers. This ECHO included didactics followed by participant presentations of real-life situations and group discussions to share resources and inform care.
View series resources and recordings »
COVID-19 Telemedicine Implementation and Technical Assistance
In response to the necessity of a number of clinics and providers having to implement telemedicine at short notice, the UT San Antonio ECHO Program, in partnership with the UT System Virtual Health Network launched a technical assistance COVID-19 Telemedicine Implementation and Technical Assistance ECHO. Each week, a team of experts delivered a brief presentation on key considerations and strategies for launching a telemedicine program, including evolving regulations, technology, and clinical considerations. Session slides and recordings will be made available after the session on our resources page. The ECHO ran from March 30th through June 8th.
View the COVID-19 Telemedicine Implementation and Technical Assistance ECHO flyer
Telemedicine implementation resources
Support Hospital Opioid Use disorder Treatment (SHOUT)
Support Hospital Opioid Use Disorder Treatment (SHOUT) Texas is a program at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin in partnership with Be Well Texas, a program of UT Health San Antonio, working to increase access to substance and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment and harm reduction during acute hospitalization in Texas.
Visit the SHOUT ECHO site
GetWaiveredTX Buprenorphine for OUD
The GetWaivered program has three main goals:
- Promote awareness of buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder
- Provide health care providers with the required training to provide this life-saving treatment
- Assist trained clinicians to complete the DEA X-waiver process
GetWaivered TX launched an ECHO to establish a community of practice that supported providers through the training and waiver processes. These sessions offered the opportunity to connect with GetWaiveredTX trainers and OUD treatment champions for advice about a variety of topics. The ECHO series evolved into the TxRx (Medication for Opioid Use Disorder) Community of Practice ECHO (See above).
Visit the GetWaivered TX Site
Hepatitis C Virus
As the most common blood-borne infection and a leading cause of liver disease, failure, and cancer, hepatitis C virus (HCV) poses a major threat to the health of our communities. To address this, we established an HCV ECHO to educate practitioners about the disease and provide evidence-based, interdisciplinary guidance for management and treatment. Our team was made up of experts in HCV care delivery, including a hepatologist, a community-based pharmacist, an infectious diseases specialist, and a community health worker.
View series resources and recordings »
HIV Care Continuum Telehealth Technical Assistance
In partnership with the UT Health San Antonio AIDS Education and Training Center (AETC), and UT System Virtual Health Network, we launched a monthly series to address regulatory, technological, and clinical considerations for delivering HIV screening, prevention, and treatment services via telehealth and telemedicine. Sessions included didactics and discussions with Texas-based clinics at any stage of telemedicine & telehealth implementation.
View series resources and recordings »
HIV/HCV Coinfection
UT Health San Antonio began its ECHO journey with its inaugural HIV/HCV ECHO as a component of the larger initiative, “Targeted Access to Community Knowledge, Linkage to treatment and Education for HIV/HCV in people of color” (TACKLE HIV/HCV), a multifaceted program to cure HCV in people with HIV in South Texas. This ECHO continues on as a component of the HIV EHO, and pulls together a multidisciplinary team of experts in hepatology, infectious disease, behavioral health, pharmacy, and community health work.
Visit the TACKLE HIV/HCV Program Site »
Listening to Long COVID
We partnered with Health Confianza for the launch of the Listening to Long COVID weekly ECHO series to explore the effects of Long COVID and share management strategies, including complementary approaches, to delivering care. Sessions included a brief educational presentation, a story shared by someone impacted by Long COVID, and group discussion to share challenges and strategies for care.
View series resources and recordings »
RAISE for Early-Career Women Faculty
While the representation of women in academic medicine is growing, women faculty early in their careers face unique barriers to success, which can lead to imbalance, burnout, and under-representation. This ECHO, Resources, Advice, Insight, Support, and Empowerment (RAISE) for Early-Career Faculty, launched in partnership with the Center for Health Policy at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, connected early-career women faculty with academic leaders and career development experts to share practical guidance and support for professional growth.
View series resources and recordings »
ST-AHEC Community Health Worker COVID-19 ECHO
The South Texas Area Health Education Center launched a CHW-COVID-19 ECHO program to train CHWs in South Texas about COVID-19 prevention and preparation measures. To learn more about the program, contact Joe Zapata with the AHEC.
Visit the South Texas AHEC Program Page
ST-AHEC Community Health Worker Opioid Use Disorder Training
The South Texas AHEC (ST-AHEC) launched an ECHO to provide opioid use disorder training for community health workers (CHWs). The goal of this ECHO was to improve workforce training in opioid addiction, harm reduction, and recovery services that utilize CHW services throughout South Texas.
Visit the South Texas AHEC Program Page
STI Telemedicine Technical Assistance
In partnership with Cardea, we ran a 4-session ECHO series to explore Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) telemedicine care delivery and provide technical support to practices at all stages of telemedicine implementation. The series included opportunities for peer-to-peer learning with other sites implementing STD telemedicine care.