2023 has been an incredible year for the ECHO program — the number of sessions offered increased by 48%, registrations were up by a whopping 540% (!), and our attendance numbers increased by 150%. And with an improved process for sharing session recordings, we are also seeing an uptick in video views. This tremendous year was possible because of our incredible internal and external partnerships in creating and facilitating these ECHOs. We are very grateful and look forward to continuing these relationships in 2024.
Let’s take a look back:
We kicked off the year with Flexing Your Core. This ECHO builds on the Strengthen Your Core Learning Hub modules and helps to raise awareness of the Palliative Approach to Care. Offered twice a year, Flexing Your Core (FYC) is our foundational ECHO series and directly links to our core strategic goal of enabling enhanced access to a palliative approach in all care settings.
The winter 2023 and fall 2023 FYC cohorts were again made up of participants from a wide range of clinical practice including nursing, social work, physicians and pharmacists. Working through the eight (8) Domains, the sessions are designed to increase the palliative core competencies for all health care providers in all settings, not just for those working specifically in palliative care.
The Provincial Palliative Nurse Coordinators ECHO series, Leaders, Navigators, Advocates, Educators – Sharing & Building Wisdom, was another 2023 success. This ECHO series is led by palliative nurse leaders from across the Regional Health Authorities who form the spoke planning team to co-create sessions for this key group of health care providers working with and across care teams.
Recognizing the importance of supporting nurses in these specialized consultant roles, the first session of the year was “Teaching in the Fray”. Petrina Wing from Vancouver Coastal Health – Sunshine Coast led the discussion about maximizing clinicians’ learning and development through practice encounters while navigating the pull of workload and limited time.
More sessions followed including:
- “Making a Difference”, delivered by Rachael Black from Maple Ridge focused on preparing clinicians for conversations and care planning in emotionally heightened situations
- “Anticipatory Planning: the good, the bad, and the ugly”, delivered by Lorna Ross from Island Health focused on recognizing change and meeting people where they are at.
In the first half of year, we also offered a standalone session which focused on an introduction of the newly developed BC Centre for Palliative Care Palliative Education Repository. The learning outcomes for this session was for super users of the repository to understand the purpose of Repository, the different kinds of users, and how to best benefit from the Repository.
As the year progressed, so too did the development and implementation of two new series and the relaunch of others.
Beginning with The All Together ECHO: Conversations to exchange best practices and to explore new ideas is a series designed to pick up on themes from the 2022 All Together Symposium.
Four sessions have been offered including “Compassion Matters”, with a focus on the Compassionate Communities Initiative. Sessions followed in the fall including:
- “Together for Palliative Care” which was highlighted the work of both the Compassionate Neighbourhood Partners Society and Galiano Heath Care society.
- “Prescriptions beyond the pharmacy”, an informative session on Social Prescribing.
The series closed the year with a session on “Developing Dementia-Inclusive Spaces for Community Access, Participation, and Engagement” (DemSCAPE).
The Serious Illness Conversations Series: Updates and Innovations brings together those involved in these conversations to learn from others who have implemented the guide into their daily practice. The sessions also provide ongoing training, adapted and updated SIC tools.
In June, Dr. Christine Jones presented her experience of bringing SIC to the dialysis unit using an interprofessional lens. Sessions to follow in the fall included:
- “Talking to parents whose seriously ill adult child cannot speak for themselves” with Camara van Breeman
- “Hearing What Matters: Early learnings about GOC conversations (in community) with people experiencing structural inequities” presented by Umilla Stead and Wallace Robertson
Capping off the year we launched a brand-new series on Grief and Bereavement Literacy.
Moving, engaging, and educational, the Grief and Bereavement Literacy series’ goal is to bring head and heart together to facilitate change.
This series is open to everyone — from those currently bereaved, to community organization staff / volunteers, clinicians, and policy makers — with an interest in the topic personally or professionally. Consequently, this series is contributing to a widening of our audience and spread of the ECHO platform.
Prior to the series launch in August, two sessions were presented “The Impact of Covid 19 on Bereavement in British Columbia” and “How best to support people in post Covid era: Provincial evidence informed recommendations by knowledge users in British Columbia”. These sessions were well received and drew participants from outside of the province as well.
Sessions in the series were offered monthly, each beginning with a short didactic presentation. Then individuals with lived experience on the topic area are invited to share. Participants were invited to share their own experiences or ask questions. Topics covered include:
- Healing Hearts – Supporting the Bereaved Following a Substance-Use Related Death
- Grieving the Death of a Pet
- Children’s Grief
- Pregnancy and Infant Loss
- Grief and Loss During the Holidays
Spreading the word
Finally, this year we were privileged to not only attend but present on ECHO at two conferences. In June at Health Quality BC’s Quality Form in Vancouver we presented “Strengthening Your Core:
Developing, Piloting, and Assessing Interactive Learning for All Health Care Providers in the Palliative Approach”.
Then in October, we attended the MetaECHO in New Mexico. It was the 20th anniversary of the creation of the ECHO initiative by the University of New Mexico and people from all over the world attended. We created a poster, presented “Playing with time” which heighted some of the interactive techniques we have used to encourage engagement in our ECHOs. As well we gave a workshop on our method of creating ECHOs by incorporating Community Development principles into how we plan and operationalize our program.
It has been an amazing year, and we are grateful to our spoke planning teams for developing such great series. We also wish to thank all those who presented, shared their work and their experiences. We look forward to seeing these series continue through 2024 and have a few more series in development.(Stay tuned!)
Check out our website for past session recordings and resources or to register for any of our 2024 sessions ECHO Program .
Do you have an idea for an ECHO series? ECHOs can be interdisciplinary in design, scope and focus. They can engage care providers, health organizations, academic institutions, community organizations, or other experts – whatever is best suited to your learning needs. We use a co-creation model to develop series with stakeholders, always keeping to the principle that we create with not for.
Want to learn more and explore the learning opportunities of the ECHO model contact us at ECHO@bc.cpc.ca
