Integration through education: utilizing project ECHO to mitigate fragmentation and support adaptive expert care in HIV Psychiatry

Abstract

PurposeCare of complex patients requires collaboration across hospital and community settings. Yet there is little recognition of the capabilities that healthcare workers need to effectively implement integrated care. An adaptive expertise theoretical framework can inform educational efforts that aim to give providers the abilities to navigate complexity and ambiguity in the healthcare system, including across hospital and community settings. Prior education research in the HIV sector has demonstrated that adaptive expert skills can be cultivated through education that emphasizes perspective exchange, inviting uncertainty in practice and integration of diverse perspectives on care.Design/methodology/approachThese principles informed the creation of an Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) in HIV Psychiatry – the first ECHO directed at a non-clinical, community health worker (CHW) audience. The goal was to improve informal collaborations across hospitals and communities.FindingsParticipation in the ECHO was robust, with significant on-camera engagement. Participants attributed success of the ECHO to key themes: explicit value placed on all kinds of knowledge (not simply clinical knowledge), emphasis on approaches for navigating ambiguity and complexity and engagement in perspective exchange for provision of integrated, team-based care. Future cycles of ECHO HIV Psychiatry are being pursued, with a focus on the development of adaptive expert capabilities and the impact on integration of care between community and hospital services.Originality/valueTo our knowledge, this is the only ECHO that is specifically aimed at frontline CHWs.