This year, our ECHO partners focused on strengthening in-country networks and supporting local adoption of the ECHO Model.
Vietnam: ECHO teams established landmark partnerships with major cancer centers and hospitals in the central and southern regions. The Vietnam National Children’s Hospital supported this expansion with their largest-ever ECHO Partner Launch Training, with participants from 30 organizations.
Malaysia: First establishing a footprint in 2021, Project ECHO has now signed a memorandum of understanding with the Malaysian Academy of Medicine in a ceremony with health officials from around the country, including the Minister of Health. Partners in Malaysia continue to leverage expertise and support from the existing ECHO networks in Indonesia and across the region to build programs in cancer, maternal and child health, and palliative care.
Indonesia: Indonesia’s Ministry of Health has ambitious goals: lower the maternal mortality rate; improve cancer outcomes for women and children; and, ultimately, establish universal health care coverage. And, it’s using the ECHO Model to get there.
On an archipelago of 17,000 islands, there is a critical need to provide training and mentoring to the health care work force.
Cancer needs a multidisciplinary approach for better outcomes, and ECHO made it easier and accessible for our peripheral hospitals and doctors to get guidance from experts,” says Dr. Haridini Intan S. Mahdi, a pediatric oncologist and advisory board member of the Cancer ECHO Program.
The Indonesian Ministry of Health has an ambitious goal: to establish universal health care…and is using the ECHO Model to achieve it.
On an archipelago of 17,000 islands, there is a critical need to provide training and mentoring to the health care work force.
ECHO’s female leaders in Vietnam believe the ECHO Model makes a difference for helping women achieve workplace visibility.
ECHO empowers women to be heard and to access higher-level positions by increasing access to continuing education, allowing women to become more easily specialized in their field.
In a country with only four specialized physicians for every 10,000 patients, the ECHO Model creates new possibilities for equitable care.
In 2024, we celebrated new partnerships in Malaysia, as well the expansion of ECHO programming to address a variety of cancers—breast, head and neck, liver—as well as palliative care.
“It is difficult to multiply doctors immediately, but it is easier to build the capacity of our current doctors so that they can provide diagnoses and treatment in their own geography,” says Dr. Rosmawati Mohamed, clinical specialist for two ECHO programs focused on liver cancer and the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia’s chief chairperson.
Director of Pediatric Health Care, Vietnam National Children’s Hospital Founder and Facilitator Lead, ECHO Superhub at Vietnam National Children’s Hospital
The ECHO Model has changed traditional medical training for the better. Our Ministry of Health’s partnership with ECHO has helped to train tens of thousands of pediatricians and health care workers not only in our cities, but in our most rural and inaccessible areas.
The ECHO Model provides training we otherwise wouldn’t have, and contributes to a more diverse and capable workforce — ultimately improving the quality of care that patients receive, at scale.