In the July 2024 Rural Health Information Hub article, Kristin Sohl, MD, a pediatrician at the University of Missouri Health Care and founder of ECHO Autism Communities, highlights a significant gap in understanding ASD and other developmental conditions among primary care providers in both urban and rural areas.
In 2015, Dr. Sohl and her colleagues established ECHO Autism to enhance primary care providers’ ability to screen for and identify ASD characteristics. The program, inspired by the national Project ECHO Model, uses virtual meetings to connect providers with expert specialists and facilitate peer discussions. Early on, it became evident that some participants had “the desire, the ability, and the need” to go beyond screening and identification, according to Dr. Sohl.
Consequently, in 2016, she and her colleagues developed an early diagnostic model to enable primary care clinicians to diagnose ASD.
Read more about the model HERE.
