Navy Initiating Pain ECHO

Pain medicine specialists at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) www.med.navy.mil/sites/NMCP2/Pages/Default.aspx are taking part in a telementoring project called “Pain ECHO”. The project brings primary care providers from different areas together to collaborate on treatment plans for patients with complex and chronic pain.

The University of New Mexico started the Project ECHO program http://echo.unm.edu   developed by Dr. Sanjeev Aurora about a decade ago to treat patients who had hepatitis C. At that time, there were few hepatitis specialists in New Mexico and patients were driving long distances to seek care.

Today, the ECHO program uses video teleconferencing to mentor a number of primary care providers in multiple locations using a hub and spoke model. By using this technology, primary care providers are brought together throughout the Navy Medicine East (NME) www.med.navy.mil.sites.nme/Pages/default.aspx  region with the team of pain specialists for multidisciplinary consultations.

The providers can be from family medicine or internal medicine clinics or from NMCP’s branch health clinics throughout Hampton Roads, Virginia. The providers can also be from any of the 18 Military Treatment Facilities from Texas to Bahrain.

During the Pain ECHO clinic, providers present cases of patients who need additional treatment to help manage their pain. The goal is to help primary care teams develop treatment plans to use in the primary care setting, reduce referrals to the pain clinic, and standardize comprehensive pain care. Recommendations for treatment can come from pain psychologists, pharmacists, physical therapists, addiction specialists, and pain medicine specialists.

The Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) started the rollout of ECHO for pain medicine in April assisted by the staff at the University of New Mexico. Specialists at NMCP are now able to conduct Pain ECHO clinics independently from the university staff which is a first within Navy Medicine.

In addition, the ECHO program was recently initiated by Army Medicine at four military installations to focus on pain medicine. These sites includes Eisenhower Army Medical Center www.ddeamc.amedd.army.mil, Womack Army Medical Center www.wamc.amedd.army.mil  Tripler Army Medical Center www.tamc.armedd.army.mil, and Landstuhl Army Medical Center https://ermc.amedd.army.mil./landstuhl. All of these sites have focused on pain management.