Project ECHO Learning Model Utilized to Educate Clinicians About Migraine Prevention & Treatment

MANHATTAN, N.Y. - Jan. 27, 2023 - PRLog -- DKBmed LLC is partnering with Project ECHO, inventors of the ECHO model in which participants engage in a virtual community with their peers where they share support, guidance and feedback, to create ECHO Migraine: Helping Community Clinicians Improve Outcomes to close gaps in the care of patients with migraines. ECHO Migraine is a small group educational initiative that will bring together clinicians with specialist mentors experienced in the diagnosis and management of migraines. Since 2019, DKBmed has developed nearly 100 ECHO-style programs for clinicians treating hepatitis B, severe asthma, and HIV in underserved communities.

Although migraines are the third most prevalent condition in the world, only 4% of patients experiencing these chronic, debilitating headaches seek care from healthcare providers. Among migraine sufferers who seek treatment, up to 56% of report "inadequate migraine relief" from traditional acute treatments while roughly 3 in 7 will experience recurrence within 24 hours of using medication. Unfortunately, patients are not being offered treatments that effectively treat acute migraine or that actually prevent migraine attacks.

"Because of their proximity to patients, primary care physicians are probably most instrumental in efforts to diagnose and properly manage migraines," notes Lesley Simon, Medical Director at DKBmed. "That being said, these care providers and many other specialists simply don't have the knowledge of how to diagnose migraine and how best to treat people who have this chronic condition. Medical students, over the course of their education, receive an average of just three hours of preclinical and clinical training on headache diagnosis and management."

More information on this program can be found at echo.dkbmed.com/programs/3

The ECHO Migraine program is designed to expand clinicians' ability to treat patients with migraine. Participants in the initiative will be assigned into 1 of 10 groups consisting of 20-25 clinicians each and will complete regularly scheduled online activities using the ECHO learning model. Topics will include:

• Reviewing the burden of migraine, including its impact on health care systems and patient-related quality of life
• Identifying criteria for migraine
• Discussing the limitations of traditional acute therapies for migraine
• Assessing the efficacy and safety of approved and emerging therapies for patients with migraine, including abortive and preventive treatments