The Heart Rhythm Society's annual meeting is one of the main events for heart rhythm care professionals in the year. Prof. Chung speaks about what to expect on-site.
HERZMEDIZIN: As the program chair of Heart Rhythm 2024, what will be the program highlights of this year’s conference?
Chung: This year's convention officially kicks off with participation in the Opening Plenary on Friday, May 17, at 8:30 a.m. A lineup of outstanding speakers, including local special guests, HRS executives and keynote speaker Jagmeet P. Singh, MD, PhD, FHRS, who will discuss artificial intelligence, its revolutionary impact on the field of EP and how it will potentially reshape traditional approaches to rhythm management. We will also have late breaking sessions as well hands-on workshops.
Already starting today we will have the Africa Summit, the PFA Live Case Summit and a 3,5 hour session on Business in EP. We will also be looking at the challenges related to sudden cardiac arrest. In the Friday's session "Vision of the future", we will talk about how we can identify and treat the vast majority of patients who have sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) but who are not identified ahead of time as being candidates for preventive therapies or who lack access to care. Novel approaches, including identification of cardiac arrest using connected devices and drone-delivered AEDs, will be discussed, focusing the debate on what needs to be done to reduce the occurrence of and improve the poor outcomes.
HERZMEDIZIN: The conference’s claim is: Bringing the world of EP together. Which sessions have a particular focus on sharing international thoughts on the newest science?
Chung: Among the many sessions where speakers come from all around the world to share their views, a particular highlight will be The Africa Summit, where discussions and numerous presentations by various speakers from Africa will take place and participants will explore clinical (e.g. recurrent disease, epidemiology of cardiac arrhythmias, common risk factors, etc.) and health policy (e.g. access to care, pharmacological/non-pharmacological therapies, reimbursements, etc.) from a global, socio-economic and political perspective. An additional focus will be on infrastructure and industry support.