Plotting Future ACR Convergence Meetings (11.24.2023) Save

In this week's podcast, Dr. Jack Cush reviews the ACR Convergence 2023 meeting and proposes how to best learn at large medical meetings:

How do you learn rheumatology at large meetings like ACR Convergence?  The numbers (13K attendees, 2-3000 Abstracts, 200+sessions) make it impossible.

• You can't be a great convention learner, unless you are prolific, experienced or have a plan – BUT MOST DON’T REALLY HAVE A PLAN!
  • Most wander the meeting without clear objectives, but know they will be doing a few specific things (poster, great debate, maybe a plenary or find that poster about probiotics…) and hope to learn the rest by osmosis.

I'm recommending a new approach to rheumatology learning - and that you start your future next big meeting (EULAR, ACR, RWCS, RheumNow live, CCR etc) learning by a specific, small-group effort to enhance learning.  You will:

• Use Digital learning resources currently waiting on you, combine them to amplify and share what you have learned.
• Establish a Digital Curriculum:
  • Curate content (study plan, choose)
  • Cover it with peers (the power of YOU+ in small groups)
  • Share, amplify and distribute WITH Social Media, short videos and emails
  • Educate  by sharing and interacting in teams and groups
• The Plan
  • Work in Teams (groups) focused on a topic, session, person
  • Everyone has marching orders – your objective is to cover Late breaking abstracts (you and….)
  • Tweet, write and do a group video (1 leader 4 team members) – 3 min each per abstract = 15 min video
  • 15 min. videos are then shared, reviewed, and discussed by peers, faculty, coworkers
• All BY CELL PHONE
• Power of small group learning, digital and F2F collaborations

An Overview of the 2023 American College of Rheumatology Convergence

(The following is a compilation of my informal interviews with onsite and virtual attendees at #ACR23, along with my impressions)

@ACRheum stated that :#ACR23 was a success! We welcomed over 13,000 attendees from nearly 100 countries, including 400 attendees from developing countries. Thank you for helping us share knowledge with colleagues around the world."

Personally, didn’t feel like it. Maybe there were ~8000, in attendance in San Diego with the rest attending virtually? Nevertheless, San Diego is a great venue and good conference center.  Many liked/loved and said to keep the review and basic science course and other Pre-meeting programs (Global Rheumatology Summit) at the start of the meeting - as these were well done, thoughtful and punchy.

Comments on what was Good, Improved and Bad (needs improvement) from ACR 2023:

GOOD

• Great networking opportunities. The anatomy of the SD convention center was conducive to meeting and learning

• Session planning was well done - major topic sessions were not in conflict

• Great program with lots of variety, at least for three full days (there wasnt much on the last 1/2 day) 
• Keynote speaker was relevant and engaging.

IMPROVED

• Posters are back!! and way better.

• Real poster sessions are infinitely better than the digital experience with posters.  

• Don’t ever mess with the poster sessions

• Twas Great to be able to talk to many about my POSTER, get direct feedback and set up new collaborations.

• The poster hall was JAMMED from 0900-1100AM

• Poster tours were better organized and there was good availability of abstracts prior to the meeting

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

• Meeting website and the app == Just didn’t work ("The app - I couldn't even open it").

• The app this year was the worse ever (compared to previous ACR and EULAR). Poor functionality, at times didn’t work;  Did the ACR or vendor even beta test the APP ?

• The website was only slightly better. Both didn’t synchronise with each other. Saved sessions in website didn’t get save in My Schedule. Moreover for both, once you clicked back, the View Schedule went back all the way to November 10 tab!

• There were many posters in pdf format were not uploaded online. This was one of the most disadvantageous aspect to the Online attendees. One of the reasons could be the organisers requested the posters to be uploaded 3 wks before conference.

• Onsite attendees gave up on trying to use the app or waiting till later that night for on-demand..

• Tech tech tech. Slides from presentations were never available, finding talks on the app was extremely difficult, the search on the website was essentially nonfunctional.

• Many struggled to find an on demand replay

• FOOD!

  • with the higher registration cost, they got to give a good service in terms of the convention maps, app and food!

  • What food, there was none

  • Convention center food eating was nonexistent. walking in and out of the convention center

  • There was no donuts, snacks or lunch (as is provided by EULAR) include this in the registration cost similar to the review course

• LAST DAY

  • Needs to bring back the Cush/Kavanagh Rheum Roundup session as this is an attendance puller, the last day was a ghost town and there should be better programming to attract and incentivise attendance at the last day

  • Attendance on the last day - maybe a battery of appealing sessions on the last day to keep people there.

VIRTUAL ATTENDEES

• Most liked their online experience and would want to do virtual again

• Virtual access, when worked, was a real plus. Posters were available as abstracts, but variably available with voice overs from authors (most don’t like, because theres no instruction that works)

• On-demand was high quality, when it was available  (Many liked that this would be available for 12 mos!)

• Online was very slow: the app and website were terrible- the website kept resetting and losing your place so took alot longer to find a  program

• ACR website had technical issues; previous years, the website automatically adjusted to time zone

• Severe limitation in number of sessions streamed live, which made it difficult to cover sessions in real-time and made it feel odd that the virtual attendance cost was similar to in person pricing. Additionally, a good nimbler of high yield sessions were not not immediately available and you had to wait for on demand viewing.

• There were also delays and connectivity issues with some of the live stream sessions.

• When the conference was entirely virtual, every speaker submitted hand outs of their lectures. However, this year, there was sparse inclusion of such hand-outs.

• The good thing was being able to view posters in a more efficient way than walking around the poster hall and not being limited to which lecture to go to based on timing of travel to the hall.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACR & EULAR MEETINGS IN 2024:

• Fix and optimize the tech, find a seasoned, professional vendors with throughly tested Apps and websites
• Prepare for a looming large virtual audience (better app, website, downloads)
• Engage adult learners in adult ways with audience participation
• More live streamed sessions, all sessions on demand within 24-48 hrs
• Handouts – cheap and requisite
• Customized pricing for virtual attendees