To help monitor the health of ACC 2021 in-person attendees for signs of COVID infection, the meeting will use BioIntelliSense's wearable BioButton continuous wireless temperature and vital signs monitoring. The wearable monitor is the size of a coin and is disposable.
UPDATE Feb 22, 2021 — ACC Abandons In-person Meeting and Goes Entirely Virtual for 2021 Due to COVID
February 9, 2021 — Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) is hoping its annual meeting can still be held in person. The 2021 meeting (ACC.21) May 15-17, will be a hybrid experience, offering attendees options to be in Atlanta in person, or for a virtual only experience online. For in person attendees, ACC is offering wearable biosensors to act as a fast-pass for entry each day into the meeting.
Wearable Monitor Will Track Attendee Vital Signs and Temperature
An interesting twist on the in-person meeting during COVID is ACC providing the FDA-cleared BioButton COVID-19 Screening Solution as a fast-pass entrance option and an added safeguard to all attendees. These monitors will be offered for free to attendees.
The coin-sized, disposable, BioIntelliSense BioButton medical-grade device offers continuous remote data capture for multi-parameter monitoring. This includes temperature, respiratory rate and heart rate at rest, body position, sleep and activity state. It can record and transmit for up to 90-days on a single disposable, on-body sensor. The wearable sensor uses HIPAA-compliant data services
BioIntelliSense marketed this device in the past year for a range of COVID-19 related use cases for the monitoring of returning workforce and students, high-risk patient populations, patients in-hospital and in-home. It was also marketed for use with frontline healthcare professionals as an alternative to regular temperature checks as the entered their buildings.
Three Tiers of Participation for ACC 2021 Attendees
The ACC.21 registration package includes registration for Gold, Silver or Bronze packages. The Gold Package is for in-person attendees. The college says the meeting is being planned based on the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID guidelines, including social distancing, temperature checks, masks requirements and other provisions.
The Silver and Bronze Package give attendees access to content through ACC's digital platform built for learning, collaboration and networking. It will allow access to 50 live streaming sessions, more than 225 on-demand sessions, e-abstracts, a virtual expo and learning destinations.
Many Cardiology Meetings Remain Virtual in 2021
In 2020, medical societies scrambled to convert over to virtual platforms for their meetings after the first waves of the COVID pandemic. The first major medical conference to be cancelled was the Health Information and Systems Society (HIMSS) a week before it was scheduled to begin last March. The major reason for the cancellation was because many major vendors began pulling out of the event. The vendors said hospitals across the country were cancelling meetings. Health systems began cancelling all travel plans for employees as the pandemic ramped up. They wanted to help contain the spread of the virus and to keep their personnel close to home in case they needed to initiate emergency plans to deal with the expected increase in infected patients seeking help locally.
Physicians organized on social media against hosting ACC or other meetings in-person, as most of the key speakers and organizers were prevented from attending. Soon after ACC and all other cardiology societies announced plans for virtual-only meetings in 2020. ACC quickly organized a scaled back virtual meeting in just three weeks.
While there are high hopes that the vaccines will allow clinicians to attend in person meetings, non-clinical vendor attendees and the large support staffs needed to organize and run in person conferences may not qualify to receive the vaccine for months. Some estimates place vaccine availability for non-essential workers and healthy individuals under age 65 may not be possibly until this summer or fall.
EHRA, SCAI, EuroCMR, ASE, SCCT and ESC are all planning on virtual meetings in 2021. HRS is planning a hybrid meeting, with virtual courses June 30 and an in-person meeting July 28-31 in Boston. HIMSS is planning an in-person meeting in August in Las Vegas. Other organizations are still waiting to see what happens with the virus during the first part of the year.
For more information on ACC.21: https://accscientificsession.acc.org/?utm_campaign=acc21&utm_medium=email_newsletter&utm_source=acc21update&utm_content=A21125
April 11, 2024 
