Virtual Peer-to-Peer Learning to Enhance and Accelerate the Health System Response to COVID-19: The HHS ASPR Project ECHO COVID-19 Clinical Rounds Initiative

Abstract

Tasked with identifying digital health solutions to support dynamic learning health systems and their response to COVID-19, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response partnered with the University of New Mexico's Project ECHO and more than two dozen other organizations and agencies to create a real-time virtual peer-to-peer clinical education opportunity: the COVID-19 Clinical Rounds Initiative. Focused on three "pressure points" in the COVID-19 continuum of care—(1) the prehospital / EMS setting, (2) emergency departments and (3) inpatient critical care environments—the initiative has created a massive peer-to-peer learning network for real time information-sharing engaging participants in all 50 U.S. states and more than 100 countries. One hundred twenty five learning sessions had been conducted between March 24, 2020 and February 25, 2021, delivering more than 58,000 total learner-hours of contact in the first eleven months of operation.