In 2003, a New Mexican woman died of untreated hepatitis C, after an eight year struggle with the disease. Despite the fact that hepatitis C is treatable, the woman could not make the eight-hour drive from her rural home to Albuquerque for specialized care, and died of her condition.
In an effort to prevent tragedies like that one from occurring again, Project ECHO was born. For the last 23 years, Project ECHO has connected health care experts to communities in need of care, Project ECHO Director of Communications, Deborah Trevino said.
“(The woman’s) story, and many others like it, are what led to ECHO,” Trevino said. “Instead of patients waiting months and traveling long distances to see specialists, and there aren’t many of them — there is definitely a specialist shortage, not just in New Mexico, but around the country — we need to better support the local healthcare workers in their communities who already know and trust their patients and are trusted by their patients. We need to get them the knowledge that they need.”
Project ECHO is a part of Health Sciences at the University of New Mexico and overlaps with many of the goals of the UNM Grand Challenges Initiatives.
“ECHO is a piece of the broader organization that addresses a lot of those goals. We also collaborate with Health Sciences on many of our programs, many of the doctors who work at UNM health sciences are part of ECHO teams and are those experts that are connected to various ECHO programs providing insights,” Trevino said.
Trevino said ECHO works through systems of experts, often associated with educational hubs like UNM, who are available for calls with frontline healthcare workers such as doctors or nurses. Care providers can consult with experts on the latest treatments and best practices.
“They do it over video conferencing; it’s accessible because it’s a low-bandwidth option and they talk to the specialists. The frontline healthcare workers learn from the specialists, and the specialists learn what’s going on in the communities,” Trevino said. “All of the providers learn from each other as well, and hear about similar cases or the experience of their peers in other remote communities. We call it an ‘all teach and all learn’ model, and that’s how it works.”
There have been nearly 9 million ECHO session attendances in conjunction with over 8,000 programs in 215 countries and areas, according to
Project ECHO 2025 Impact Report. Trevino said the program, which began in and operates out of New Mexico, is a global phenomenon.
“We originated the model, we train all of the partners, we helped them sort of support them as they continue with their programs,” Trevino said. “We provide the technology platform that they work on and measurement mechanisms and all of that. But also within this organization, we have a New Mexico ECHO hub and there are a lot of programs that are run out of the New Mexico hub and it’s everything from opioid use disorder, to education programs, child trauma informed childcare — it’s just a whole range.”
Specialists in other fields beyond traditional healthcare, such as addiction recovery, literacy improvement and public safety, can also be reached through Project ECHO.
One success story shared in the Project ECHO 2025 impact report was the success of Nicolle Arthun, a registered nurse from Albuquerque who utilized Project ECHO resources to build respectful, culturally-competent structures of care for groups that have been historically mistreated by the medical system, and less likely to seek prenatal care. Another success was Dr. Ruchi Seth, who utilized Project ECHO to meet the evolving educational needs of children in Noida, India.
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“If we accomplish our goals, people in every community, regardless how remote or regardless of who lives there, everyone in every community has the access to quality healthcare,” Trevino said. “We believe that it’s a human right and what we’re trying to do is facilitate that accessibility to healthcare that is such a challenge in New Mexico, in the U.S. and around the world.”
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
