TY  - JOUR
AU  - Wiet, Ryan
AU  - Casanova, Madeline P
AU  - Moore, Jonathan D
AU  - Deming, Sarah M
AU  - Baker Jr, Russell T
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/3/21
TI  - Creation of the ECHO Idaho Podcast: Tutorial and Pilot Assessment
JO  - JMIR Med Educ
SP  - e55313
VL  - 11
KW  - Project ECHO
KW  - ECHO Idaho
KW  - medical education
KW  - medical training
KW  - medication teaching
KW  - medical knowledge
KW  - rural health care
KW  - rural medicine
KW  - underserved population
KW  - underserved people
KW  - substance use
KW  - substance use disorder
KW  - SUD
KW  - drug abuse
KW  - drug use
KW  - alcoholism
KW  - addiction
KW  - pain
KW  - behavioral health
KW  - podcast
KW  - webinar
AB  - Background: Project ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) is an innovative program that uses videoconferencing technology to connect health care providers with experts. The model has been successful in reaching health care providers in rural and underserved areas and positively impacting clinical practice. ECHO Idaho, a replication partner, has developed programming that has increased knowledge and confidence of health care professionals throughout the state of Idaho, United States. Although the ECHO model has a demonstrated ability to recruit, educate, and train health care providers, barriers to attending Project ECHO continuing education (CE) programs remain. The asynchronous nature of podcasts could be used as an innovative medium to help address barriers to CE access that health care professionals face. The ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast was developed to increase CE accessibility to rural and frontier providers, while upscaling their knowledge of and competence to treat and assess substance use disorders, pain, and behavioral health conditions. Objective: This paper describes the creation and preliminary assessment of the ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast. Methods: Podcast episodes consisted of interviews with individuals as well as didactic lectures. Audio from these recordings were edited for content and length and then professionally reviewed by subject matter experts (eg, featured episode speakers). Target audiences consisted of health care providers and community members interested in behavioral health and substance use disorders. Metrics on podcast listeners were assessed using SoundCloud’s RSS feed, continuing education survey completion, and iECHO. Results: The ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast’s inaugural season comprised 14 episodes with 626 minutes of CE material. The podcast series received a total of 2441 listens from individuals in 14 different cities across Idaho, and 63 health care providers listened and claimed CE credits. The largest professional group was social workers (n=22; 35%). Conclusions: We provide preliminary evidence that podcasts can be used to provide health care providers with opportunities to access CE material. Health care providers listened to and claimed CE credits from the ECHO Idaho “Something for the Pain” podcast. Project ECHO programs should consider creating podcasts as an additional platform for disseminating ECHO material. 
SN  - 2369-3762
UR  - https://mededu.jmir.org/2025/1/e55313
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/55313
DO  - 10.2196/55313
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/55313
ER  -