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Topic

Clinicians can often find it both challenging and daunting to identify their role in addressing the epidemics of opioid misuse and drug overdose deaths facing the nation, particularly in the hard-hit area of northern New England.  In an effort to engage and support clinicians in these efforts, Maine Quality Counts (QC) and its partners in the Northern New England ECHO (NNE ECHO) initiative have used the proven “Project ECHO” model to provide direct education and support using the ECHO model of web-supported, case-based learning.  The NNE ECHO initiative has hosted several opioid-related programs to date, including compassionate tapering of opioids; SUD care through the perinatal period; Medications for Addiction Treatment (MAT); and bringing key community sectors together to decrease drug overdose deaths within local communities.  In this session, Jeanne Ryer (NH Citizens Health Initiative at UNH) and Lisa Letourneau (Maine Quality Counts) will provide an introduction to the ECHO model, and describe how their organizations have used ECHO programs to engage and support clinicians and communities in addressing the opioid epidemic.

About the Presenters

Dr. Lisa Letourneau is a physician leader and passionate advocate for health care system delivery change, with a particular interest in advancing primary care and patient engagement efforts. She previously served for as Executive Director of Maine Quality Counts, a regional health improvement collaborative, where she led several quality improvement efforts including the Maine Aligning Forces for Quality initiative and the Maine Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Pilot. Dr. Letourneau is a graduate of Brown University and the Dartmouth-Brown Program in Medicine and is a board-certified internist who practiced emergency medicine for seven years before beginning her work in clinical quality improvement. She holds a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and has a particular interest in helping to build connections between public health and clinical care, and the role of physicians in helping to develop and lead health improvement efforts.

Jeanne Ryer is the Director of the NH Citizens Health Initiative (NHCHI), a multi-stakeholder statewide effort to create a system of care that promotes health, assures quality and makes care affordable, effective, and accessible to all New Hampshire residents. NHCHI is a project under the NH Institute for Health Policy and Practice.

From 2003 until 2011, Jeanne was Program Director at the Endowment for Health, New Hampshire’s statewide health foundation, where she managed a portfolio of grants, projects, and policy initiatives addressing economic and geographic barriers to health. Her work focused on state and federal health system reforms, safety net health services, and community transportation. She led efforts to develop and implement a Mission Related Investment strategy to create the Safety Net Loan Fund, a working capital loan fund for safety net primary care, mental health, and oral health clinics. Before joining the Endowment, Jeanne served as Senior Program Officer for the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and served as lead staff for the Lakes Region Charitable Foundation. Prior to that, she was the principal of a consulting firm specializing in community health and human services planning and primary health care access, focusing on the needs of the underserved in rural and remote areas.

Jeanne’s research and professional interests include population perceptions of health and well-being and the use of multi-stakeholder collaboratives in health systems transformation. She is author and co-author of several books, including one of the early guides to the Internet and others on accessing health and medical information online.

Jeanne serves on the Legislative Commission on Primary Care Workforce, the New England Comparative Effectiveness Public Advisory Council, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Healthy Communities, and the Steering Committee for ReThink Health of the Upper Connecticut River Valley.