Our Story
ECHO India is a non-profit trust that was founded in 2008 with a mission to promote equity in Healthcare, Education and other Sustainable Development Goals. The organization achieves this goal by providing capacity-building programs for healthcare professionals, educators and community workers.ECHO India's innovative 'Hub and Spoke' Model of learning involves a team of experts serving as the hub, mentoring and training the spokes, who are a cohort of learners. This approach is facilitated through a cutting-edge digital infrastructure that enables scalable and sustainable capacity building in a cost-effective manner.
ECHO India aims to impact the lives of 400 million people in India by the end of 2025. To achieve this goal, in collaboration with our partners, we have launched over 250 hubs and implemented 800 capacity-building programs that cover more than 30 disease areas. These programs have witnessed over a million attendances from healthcare workers and educators across the country, with remarkable results. The ECHO Model's 'All Teach All Learn' framework has been proven effective and has been validated by over 500 peer-reviewed articles published in renowned national and international journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
ECHO India has joined forces with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and 29 state National Health Missions (NHMs), municipal corporations, nursing councils, and esteemed medical institutions across India. Some of our leading institutional partners include AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences), NIMHANS (National Institute of Mental Health & Neurological Sciences), NITRD (National Institute for Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases), NICPR (National Institute of Cancer Prevention & Research), Tata Memorial Hospital, and PGIMER (Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education & Research). By collaborating with these entities, ECHO India is making significant strides toward strengthening the country's healthcare system.
The beginning of a global movement
Project ECHO grew out of one doctor’s vision, Dr Sanjeev Arora, MD, a liver disease specialist at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque.
Dr Arora was frustrated that he could serve only a fraction of the Hepatitis C patients while thousands of patients in his home state were unable to get treatment simply because specialists were hardly accessible from where they lived. With the intention of delivering treatment to as many patients as possible, in the remotest, most underserved areas, he created a case-based learning model to mentor and amplify capacities of local healthcare providers on how to treat the condition.
Today, the model is being implemented by nearly 400 partners in 38 countries, working across 70+ focus areas.
Dr Sanjeev Arora, MD, Founder & Director, Project ECHO
Changing the World, Fast.
Learn about the story, vision, missions and an in-depth understanding of the ECHO Model, first-hand from the founder-director of Project ECHO.
ECHO VS Telemedicine
Although the ECHO model makes use of telecommunications technology – it is not traditional telemedicine, in which a specialist assumes care of a patient. Instead, the ECHO Model can be defined as telementoring, a guided practice model where the participating care provider participants become part of a knowledge-sharing platform for building capacity and sharing best practices through case-based learning.
4 Pillars of the ECHO model™
Amplification
Building capacities by leveraging technology and amplifying the use of the ECHO Model™️
Best Practices
Spokes have access to best practices from knowledge experts across the country
Case-based learning
Spokes gain practical knowledge from real-life cases to align theory and practice
Monitoring Programs
Constantly monitoring programs to continually evaluate and improve approaches
Our Board of Trustees & Leadership
Steering the path towards our goals whilst upholding our mission & vision
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Dr. (Col) Kumud Rai
Chairman, ECHO India
Director, Vascular Surgery, Max Hospital
Dr. Arvind Lal
Padmashree Awardee
Chairman & Managing Director Dr. Lal PathLabs
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan
Chairperson, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation
Former Chief Scientist, World Health Organization
Meenakshi Datta Ghosh
Former IAS
Public Health Policy Professional
Amit Midha
General Manager - Sales & marketing BLK Super Specialty Hospital Associate Vice President at Max Healthcare
Dr. Subrat Acharya
Padmashree Awardee
Retd.Prof. of Gastroenterology All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)
Dr. H Sudarshan
Padmashree Awardee
Honorary Secretary Karuna Trust