The Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO Program: Leveraging Telehealth to Improve Rare Bone Disease Care

Rare bone diseases constitute ~ 5% of all known rare diseases and can require complex, multidisciplinary care. Advancing access to current medical knowledge is an important strategy for improving care for rare bone diseases throughout the world. To support this goal, the Rare Bone Disease Alliance launched the Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO in 2019.

The Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO is a monthly video teleconference that fosters a collegial community of practice and opportunities for active learning through interactive case-based learning. TeleECHO relies on a hub-and-spoke model, where medical professionals at the "hub" provide support and expertise for other healthcare providers, or the "spokes". Evidence of the global reach of the program as well as qualitative feedback from registrants supports the need for rare bone disease education and the value of the TeleECHO model. The Rare Bone Disease TeleECHO helps meet the challenge of disseminating rapidly expanding rare bone disease knowledge by leveraging telehealth.