Project Echo: Survivorship
Two-thirds of cancer patients live at least five years after diagnosis and many live for decades after treatment. The number of cancer survivors in the U.S. is estimated to be 14 million and is expected to increase to 18 million by 2020. An aging Texas population as well as continued improvements in early detection and treatment will further increase the number of Texans who will have been successfully treated. Evidence-based preventive services are an important component of care, however, they are utilized at less than recommended levels.
This innovative intervention is expected to promote the adoption of changes in practice systems associated with improved coordination and delivery of recommended services. It will enhance the capabilities and self-efficacy of clinicians to address the primary domains of survivorship care and will ultimately result in reduced morbidity and mortality while maximizing the quality of life for cancer survivors.
Practice system changes will be implemented to identify cancer survivors currently receiving general medical care in the practices. The clinicians will obtain or develop treatment summaries and survivorship care plans for those patients based on best evidence and guidelines developed by recognized organizations. This project will address primary prevention and lifestyle counseling, secondary prevention with surveillance and screening as well as tertiary prevention psychosocial, late and long term effects. Project ECHO® tele-mentoring will be provided through regular interactive sessions. Led by cancer center faculty content experts and collaborating partners, this will facilitate case based problem solving, sharing of best practices provide targeted educational programming and support process improvement initiatives.
Meet Our Partnering Institutions
UT Health Northeast
The Family Medicine Residency Program at UT Health Northeast provides clinical training in an academic setting.
UT Health Northeast is committed to training the next generation of family medicine physicians. With expert guidance and the latest medical technologies, our Family Medicine Residency Program offers residents clinical experience that is supported by a solid academic foundation.
UT Health’s Family Medicine Center achieved the highest recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance as a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) under the 2011 guidelines. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a PCMH puts patients at the center of the health care system, and provides primary care that is “accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family-centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective.”
The educational goals of the Family Residency Program at UT Health include:
• Train competent family physicians in all aspects of the specialty of family medicine as per the ACGME requirements
• Develop skills that enable residents to practice compassionate medicine and communicate with the patient within the family dynamic
• Instill leadership skills that enable residents to be health advocates with the community and quality mentors for future physicians
Each year UT Health welcomes eight new residents to our beautiful campus in Tyler, Texas. By collaborating with physicians, researchers, nurses, students and other healthcare professionals, together we advance community health through quality education.
Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin
The future of medical education, care and research is taking shape at the Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, the first medical school in nearly 50 years to be built from the ground up at a top tier Association of American Universities (AAU) research university.
In the words of UT President Gregory Fenves, “Nothing will embody [UT Austin’s] spirit of innovating excellence as much as the opening of the Dell Medical School. We are developing a new model for medical education that partners with the community, redesigning health care to better align with society’s interests in quality and value. We are creating and supporting partnerships and programs that will revolutionize the way Texans get and stay healthy, combining clinical work with an innovative learning culture that is team-based and multiprofessional, drawing on the strengths of the university.”
The vision of the Dell Medical School is to build a vital, inclusive health ecosystem. The mission is focused on transforming the way people get and stay healthy.
The medical school was created in unprecedented partnership with local taxpayers, who in 2012 voted to support a vision for better health in Austin and Travis County. The school, which is at the heart of a burgeoning health district in downtown Austin, will welcome its first class of 50 students in the June of 2016.
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
The Department of Family Medicine at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is led by its chair of more than a decade, Dr. Barbara L. Thompson. The department was founded as an independent department in 1971, but existed prior to that as a division of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health.
Our faculty provide medical care to Galveston County residents through its three clinics, located on the UTMB Galveston campus, on the western end of Galveston Island, and in Dickinson, Texas, and through its inpatient service at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas. Additional services are rendered at the Gulf Health Care Center nursing home and the Ball High School Teen Health Clinic. Our faculty also provide care to the UTMB community through UTMB Employee Health Clinic and Student Wellness.
At present the department includes programs in medical student education, residency, faculty development, and research.
The department’s Residency Program is a 10-10-10 program accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).
The department’s Medical Student Education Program participates in all four years of the medical curriculum, offering a variety of elective and selective courses and its third-year family medicine clerkship. The program also provides examiners for various examinations throughout the curriculum, including the fourth-year Integrative Curriculum Evaluation Exercise (ICEE.)
The Research Program fosters clinical and educational research and collaboration with on-campus colleagues as well as with colleagues at other esteemed institutions. The program also provides research opportunities for students and residents.