"All Teach, All Learn": Project ECHO Participant Spotlight

Chad Shaffer, MD, of Armstrong Primary Care Center in New Bethlehem, PA, participated in both our Medication for Opioid Use Disorder and Rural Providers ECHO series.
Access to primary care helps people live longer, healthier lives. In communities with more primary care providers per person, death rates for cancer, heart disease and stroke are lower, and people are less likely to require hospitalization. However, the barriers to recruiting and retaining physicians to work in rural locations have resulted in a projected deficit of over 20,000 primary care physicians in America’s rural areas by 2025. That is why Project ECHO has launched learning communities focused on supporting rural providers where they are. Our rural provider contacts have expressed a need for practical and timely information sharing and access to a multi-disciplinary team of specialists. Through support from Ross and Carol Nese, Project ECHO at Penn State College of Medicine has developed an innovative ECHO session structure that promotes a learning community for rural providers on needed and informed topics.