Editors` Expressions: Expo 2020 Will Be One for the Books

"Editors' Expressions" is a recurring feature in which the EMS World editorial staff ruminates on current news, noteworthy events and everyday happenings with relevance to healthcare and EMS delivery. Feel free to react in the comment box below or e-mail editor@emsworld.com.

Adapt and overcome. That’s a mantra we hear often in EMS, as we need to find unconventional ways to solve unconventional challenges. Is that not also the mantra of 2020? It doesn't matter what you do or who you are. In some way or another, 2020 has thus far been a year of adapting and overcoming. Though we continue to read about progress in the development of vaccinations for COVID-19, we're not there yet. Our adapting and overcoming will continue.

It's in that spirit that I wish to recognize our EMS education colleagues around the country and world for the great lengths they're going to, to provide up-to-date EMS education remotely in the COVID-19 environment. Just this week our friends at Pinnacle hosted a multi-day digital event with some of the biggest thought leaders in EMS.

We at EMS World and HMP (our parent company) are no different. Just this past weekend we hosted three digital meetings covering wide-ranging medical specialties. We welcomed record attendance at one of our signature events. Here's what one attendee had to say about her experience at the Symposium in Advanced Wound Care (SAWC):

“I just wanted to tell you all how impressed I am just after the first day [of SAWC] and seeing how everything worked so smoothly!…I have to admit I was not that excited about this since I absolutely love attending SAWC in person since it gives me such a boost in morale when I attend them and learn so many new things, but I must admit just after the 3 sessions attended today I felt that same excitement and boost I get...So thank you for all your work and I am very pleasantly surprised.” Sincerely, Leslie Law, P.T. (Juneau, Alaska)

Like SAWC, EMS World Expo Virtual will not disappoint. From a content perspective, the digital conference will include multiple pre-conference events Monday and Tuesday Sept. 14-15 followed by three days of CE-accredited (F5–counts just like in-person) sessions on Sept. 16-18 covering multiple tracks of learning, where we provide something for everyone in EMS. The intra-session interactivity will transcend that which we have previously provided in person, with the ability to ask questions (no need to be bashful about going up to a mic) and chat throughout each session with peers and faculty.

2020 will not be your traditional EMS World Expo, and neither will the keynote. This year it will be delivered by the inimitable Dr. Glaucomflecken (ophthalmologist, comedian, and survivor of both cancer and sudden cardiac arrest). Make sure you check out his social media presence—you and his 153,000 Twitter followers and thousands more on TikTok.

And while content remains king, like at EMS World Expo in person, the digital experience will offer much more than content as well…including the opportunity to win round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations and registration for EMS World Expo 2021 or other prizes as part of our Earning While Learning competition, which you can join as an individual or as a team.

Expo 2020 will not be your ordinary Zoom. The digital conference platform is robust, with multiple simultaneous educational tracks and chats, several opportunities to meet and greet with exhibitors and each other, and an exhibit hall where you can see and tour all the products relevant to your EMS agency. This is not a webinar—this is an experience.

If you've not done so already, please register at www.emsworldexpo.com and use code Josh20in20 for a 20% discount on a 3-day conference registration—my gift of EMS education for all you've adapted and overcame throughout the past months. Looking forward to seeing you online in September!

Joshua D. Hartman, MBA, NRP, is the senior vice president of the Cardiovascular and Public Safety divisions at HMP, the parent company of EMS World.