The Palliative Care ECHO Program on Health System Strengthening Completes Pilot Program

The World Health Organization’s Palliative Care Health System Strengthening ECHO initiative has officially concluded the first year's program, marking an important step forward in improving global access to palliative care. 

Through a series of monthly online sessions, creating a community of practice, this program focused on a health systems approach to improving palliative care access through policy development, financing, workforce training, essential medicines access, and integration of palliative care service delivery into universal health coverage.

This one-year program, was intended as a pilot involving the WHO Palliative Care Working Group and international experts to develop training materials, evaluation tools, and resources to strengthen health systems in palliative care.

Each session included a country case study, which highlighted countries to share experiences, including successful strategies for overcoming challenges. Detailed country cases presented including: Sri Lanka, Uruguay, Brazil, Kenya, India, Vietnam, with additional a wide variety of other country examples presented in a more brief format. 

Participants praised the initiative for creating a supportive, cross-country learning environment as an important step to accelerate system-level change. 

The momentum generated by this program will continue in 2026, as the next cohort of the program will expand to incorporate 12 country teams who will participate in the program. These countries will receive focused regional mentorship and support to develop strategic action plans to identify and take next steps to improve palliative care access.

To explore some of the key palliative care resources from this program, visit the WHO NCD Knowledge to Action Portal.