Exploring Care Home Workers' Perceptions of Implementing ECHO: A Qualitative Study

IF 1.6 4区医学 Q4 GERIATRICS & GERONTOLOGY

International Journal of Older People Nursing Pub Date : 2025-02-13 DOI:10.1111/opn.70017

Michelle Beattie, Kevin Muirhead, Nicola Carey

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Abstract

Background

To ensure older people living in care homes receive optimal care, care home workers (CHWs) require access to specialist support and education. Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) uses existing videoconferencing to connect CHWs to specialists using case-based learning. There is evidence in other settings to suggest that ECHO can improve practitioner knowledge and patient outcomes. There is a dearth of evidence regarding strategies for effective implementation of ECHO with CHWs.

Aim

To establish the experiences of ECHO, and the barriers and enablers to implementation, from the perspective of CHWs in Scotland.

Methods

Qualitative online focus groups (n = 4) with CHWs (n = 13) who had participated in at least one care home ECHO session and with facilitators/presenters (n = 6). Transcripts were thematically analysed.

Findings

Findings were grouped into three areas: perceived impact, inhibitors and enablers. CHWs reported the positive impact of ECHO including key benefits to enhance residents' care, satisfaction with the sessions and feeling valued. Inhibitors included limited digital skills, workforce challenges and the pitch and duration of ECHO sessions. Enablers included administrative and technical support, scheduling and the structure of the ECHO approach.

Conclusions

ECHO allows CHWs to access specialist support, enabling learning and development, with the potential to improve residents' care. Benefits to residents' care included CHWs' enhanced understanding of choices around death and dying, and insights and understanding of causation of challenging behaviours in older people and how to manage these. Adaptations to ECHO to suit a care home context are recommended.

Implications for Practice

CHWs require technical support to build competence and confidence in IT skills. This study highlights the potential for ECHO to support CHWs to access specialist support and learning for older adults in a care home context.

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来源期刊

International Journal of Older People Nursing Nursing-Gerontology

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： International Journal of Older People Nursing welcomes scholarly papers on all aspects of older people nursing including research, practice, education, management, and policy. We publish manuscripts that further scholarly inquiry and improve practice through innovation and creativity in all aspects of gerontological nursing. We encourage submission of integrative and systematic reviews; original quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research; secondary analyses of existing data; historical works; theoretical and conceptual analyses; evidence based practice projects and other practice improvement reports; and policy analyses. All submissions must reflect consideration of IJOPN''s international readership and include explicit perspective on gerontological nursing. We particularly welcome submissions from regions of the world underrepresented in the gerontological nursing literature and from settings and situations not typically addressed in that literature. Editorial perspectives are published in each issue. Editorial perspectives are submitted by invitation only.