ITANAGAR, 19 Sep: A state-level consultation meeting on ‘Adoption of ECHO India model for training of personnel of health department’ was chaired by Health & Family Welfare Commissioner Pawan Kumar Sain at the civil secretariat here on Thursday.
Established in 2008, the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model is a non-profit trust focused on bringing equity, primarily in the fields of healthcare and education, through capacity building of healthcare practitioners and educators. The ECHO’s ‘hub and spoke’ model of learning – the hub being a group of experts who regularly mentor the learners (spokes) – uses a cutting-edge digital infrastructure called iECHO to enable capacity building at speed and scale in a sustainable and cost-effective way, it informed in a release.
The health department has agreed to adopt the ECHO model for capacity building, and has appointed Dr Tana Natung as the state nodal officer. A tentative, time-bound action plan has also been developed to implement this initiative.
During the meeting, ECHO vice president Dr Sandeep Bhalla delivered a presentation on ECHO India’s nationwide activities, highlighting the organisation’s signing memorandums of understanding with 24 states.
He emphasised how the ECHO model has “transformed training methodologies, significantly reducing costs while maintaining high training quality.”
Following Dr Bhalla’s presentation, ECHO India’s state nodal officer for child health Dr Tana Natung spoke about the state’s training initiatives under the ECHO model.
He underscored “the potential for all state programme and nodal officers to adopt the ECHO model, thereby conserving resources for other critical department needs,” the release stated.
“The meeting marked the conclusion of a three-day visit by ECHO India to Arunachal Pradesh, during which the team explored collaboration opportunities with the health and education departments,” the release stated.
Significant progress has been made, including the rollout of a certificate course in cardio-metabolic syndrome for 274 allopathy general duty medical officers on 26 August, 2024, expected to be completed within a year, it said, adding that “certificate course on ‘child death review – roles and responsibilities of community-level health functionaries’ was launched on 16 September, 2024, aiming to train 4405 ASHAs.”
The meeting was attended by, among others, Health & Family Welfare Secretary Krishna Kumar Singh, NHM Mission Director Marge Sora, TRIHMS Director Dr Moji Jini, Health Services Director Dr Riken Rina, Medical Education Research & Training Director Dr Hage Ambing, and Family Welfare Director Amping Perme Ete.
