Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, in Houston, Texas, has launched an exciting telehealth program, Project E.C.H.O. (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center (BSLMC), with a team of healthcare professionals, Project E.C.H.O. Medical Director and Hepatologist, Norman Sussman, MD and Project Coordinator, Lizette Escamilla.  

Project E.C.H.O. is a telehealth program that will enable specialists, like Dr. Sussman, to coach primary care providers, throughout the State of Texas, in treating patients who have been diagnosed with chronic disease, using telecommunication. Each clinic will have primary care providers call at scheduled clinic times, via videoconferencing, to discuss each patient’s chronic disease diagnosis with the Project E.C.H.O. BSLMC team. As part of the program presentation, Dr. Sussman will examine each patient’s presentation form during the videoconference. At that time, the Project E.C.H.O. BSLMC team will recommend the appropriate course of action for treatment.

The mission of this program is to use teleconferencing to enhance medical resources in communities that currently lack specialized care to underserved Texas cities and rural communities. This will provide patients the opportunity to receive chronic disease treatment and other specialized care that they may otherwise have difficulty accessing.

Project E.C.H.O. is a great opportunity to bring alternative healthcare options to Texas cities and rural communities. As an incentive, all participating providers will receive specialty chronic disease healthcare.

We encourage primary care physicians and midlevel clinicians to contact Project E.C.H.O. for training on how to treat HCV locally rather than having to refer patients to distant specialists. Treatment and monitoring patients is becoming easier than ever before. For information on how to become a Project E.C.H.O. partner, please contact Lizette Escamilla at lescamilla@stlukeshealth.org or at 1-855-259-0028.