Clinical Outcomes of Rural Patients with Diabetes Treated by ECHO-Trained Providers Versus an Academic Medical Center.

Background: Despite clinical practice guidelines prioritizing cardiorenal risk reduction, national trends in diabetes outcomes, particularly in rural communities, do not mirror the benefits seen in clinical trials with emerging therapeutics and technologies.

Objective: Project ECHO supports implementation of guidelines in under-resourced areas through virtual communities of practice, sharing of best practices, and case-based learning. We hypothesized that diabetes outcomes of patients treated by ECHO-trained primary care providers (PCPs) would be similar to those of patients treated by specialists at an academic medical center.