AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network

In October 2020, the AHRQ ECHO National Nursing Home COVID-19 Action Network launched, becoming the nation’s most comprehensive effort to reduce and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes.

At the time, COVID-19 was surging across the country, disproportionately affecting people living and working in nursing homes.

More than 9,000 nursing homes from all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico signed up to join the Network, a partnership of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Project ECHO and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Over 10 months, thousands of nursing home staff participated in a virtual community where they received mentoring, technical assistance and critical peer support. Foundational to the Network’s programming was a standardized curriculum, which was developed by IHI in consultation with ECHO and AHRQ. IHI continually updated the curriculum to reflect new evidence and address new, emerging issues.

Training Program

The training program used the evidence-based process pioneered by Project ECHO referred to as the ECHO model, which:

• is an interactive, case-based approach to learning,
• includes weekly training sessions are facilitated by small multidisciplinary teams of subject-matter and quality-improvement experts,
• combines short lectures that provide immediately usable best practices with case-based group learning, and
• creates a robust community of practice that fosters both peer-to-peer learning and expert consultation.

The Network and training centers provided participating nursing homes with access to national and local experts in:

• infection control
• patient safety
• quality improvement
• nursing home operations