Project ECHO®: A telemedicine model to empower clinicians in best-practice paediatric weight management
Obesity is a complex health issue that places considerable burden on the public health care system. There are currently limited services in Queensland for children and adolescents who live with overweight or obesity. Primary health care services need to play a significant role in managing these concerns, however, literature shows that although general practitioners do believe that weight management in children is part of their role, only a small proportion regularly provide counselling. Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a hub-and-spoke platform that utilises telementoring to help facilitate the professional development of health practitioners and empower them to provide care for patients that they would otherwise need to refer on. This project uses the ECHO modelTM to empower health professionals to manage children and adolescents living with overweight or obesity, and will evaluate the effectiveness of the model, including changes in knowledge, attitudes, confidence and practising behaviours.
Funding body: This project is being conducted by a collaboration of researchers from The University of Queensland and clinicians from Health and Wellbeing Queensland (HWQld).
