In 2017 Hospice UK was engaged to deliver and evaluate the Department of Health, Northern Ireland’s Project ECHO NI programmes. Their ECHO Networks comprise of health, social care, community and voluntary sector professionals who come together to transform service delivery models. Each year the Hospice UK ECHO Team supports the delivery and evaluation of up to 30 ECHO Network programmes.

In the summer of 2022 the ECHO Team, as part of its yearly quality and service improvement programme, engaged in a discovery process to create a minimum viable product (MVP) in the form of an Impact Report. The premise to create this report was embedded in the desire to enhance the existing evaluation of each ECHO programme and provide a tangible evidence based product for all ECHO Networks. Two ECHO Networks were selected for this pilot initiative – Health Inequalities Lisburn and Social Prescribing.

It was agreed with the ECHO Network Leads (individual/s) who are the nominated champions with each Network) that the Impact Report content would include:

1. An outline of ‘what is Project ECHO’.

2. The aims and objectives of the ECHO Network derived from their Logic Model.

3. A short ‘ECHO in Action’ video outlining the format of an ECHO Session.

4. ECHO programme, with learning objectives and video clips.

5. Interview videos with ECHO Leads.

6. Evaluation results of the programme – number of ECHO Sessions, education and case presentations, average attendance.

7. Participant feedback.

An interactive software package was identified (PageTiger) as a suitable platform to develop the MVP. The PageTiger software allows all readers to become immersed in ECHO participants’ learning and case-based experiences. The ECHO IT team, who use the PageTiger software to create the Impact Reports highlighted its ‘ease of use’. With the success of the pilot impact reports it was agreed that all ECHO Networks who launch a programme from September 2022 would receive similar.