Dr. Sanjeev Arora's Year-End Message

In this joyous season, we are grateful to you, our ECHO community for sharing the gift of knowledge and working tirelessly to improve lives around the world. Here is our 2022 Year-End Message from Dr. Arora:

Dear ECHO Community,

As we end another incredibly busy year for Project ECHO—and look to the new year with hope and gratitude—I wanted to share a few thoughts with the people—like you—that make our critical work possible.?

2022 was in many ways a learning journey for Project ECHO. As of year-end, ECHO has reached more than 4 million learners in 193 countries. And after growing the number of ECHO attendances by more than 500% in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that the Project ECHO—and the ECHO Model—could achieve everything we had envisioned – and so much more.

We have also recognized that most of this growth has occurred in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and the Global South.?We now have with 168 hubs in Africa and 162 in India, reaching?184,733?attendees in Africa and?106,542?attendees in India just this year. As of year-end, more than half of ECHO hubs are located in LMICs.

With a greatly expanded network?and a new geographic and demographic representation of ECHO, we asked ourselves how ECHO could help even more people with the right vision, focus and resources.

How can we achieve the kind of impact that will change the world??

We listened to our partners—from our home state of New Mexico to Africa, India, Latin America, Asia Pacific and beyond—to better understand their diverse challenges and priorities. We reviewed data from the new iECHO platform currently rolling out to all new partners and to existing partners in India and Africa. And personally, I did a good bit of reflecting on the mission we started nearly 20 years ago.???

Here is some of what we’ve learned.?

• ECHO is uniquely suited to address the crippling inequity in global health systems— quickly, at scale and at a lower cost. As governments and NGOs work to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, ECHO is proving to be a powerful tool to accelerate their progress.?
• Women, children and adolescents in particular don’t have equitable access to quality health care in many parts of the world. This has huge implications for the strength of our communities, and frankly, for society at large. By empowering professionals and making the workforce more gender-aware, ECHO can play a key role in reversing gender inequities. And by bringing in global leaders like Dr. Judith Palfrey, a past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and renowned expert on maternal and child health, ECHO is strengthening our team and helping our partners create programmatic solutions.???
• Speaking of children and adolescents, access to education is another global challenge ECHO is well suited to solve. ECHO for Education has grown significantly over the past year. With new programs launching every month and with our first African education program in Nigeria and expanding programming in India, this area is poised for significant growth that will have massive impact in communities around the world.???
• In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, health systems around the globe are struggling to meet the needs of those they serve, particularly those with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) that were not properly diagnosed or treated during the pandemic. ECHO is helping strengthen these systems with programs designed to bring state-of-the-art expertise on cancer, diabetes, hepatitis C, and a host of other NCDs, to the places where that expertise is most needed.?
• Partners are both growing and sustaining ECHO, working collaboratively to raise each other up. This is the multiplier effect I often talk about. From New Mexico and the U.S. to Africa and India, ECHO partners are forming collaboratives, sharing advice and ensuring every ECHO is set up for sustainable success.?

Based on all we’ve learned, ECHO will be laser-focused in 2023 on finding new opportunities to help women and children. We will strengthen our on-the-ground presence in Africa as we establish an ECHO Africa office, in Kenya, with local leadership. And we will work to expand ECHO’s impact in communities with the greatest need, both in low- and middle-income countries and around the world. The new year will bring many more challenges, but I’ve never been more confident in the ability of the ECHO community to tackle those challenges with innovation, commitment and—most important—heart.?

Enjoy this season of sharing and I look forward to sharing more with you during Project ECHO’s 20th anniversary year and seeing all of you, in person, at our MetaECHO conference in September.??

Sincerely,?

Dr. Sanjeev Arora, Founder and Director of Project ECHO

December 2022