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In this interview, EP Lab Digest talks with Sana M. Al-Khatib, MD, MHS, co-Executive Producer for HRX 2023, about the upcoming meeting taking place September 21-23, 2023, in Seattle, Washington. 

Congratulations on your success with HRX! We attended in 2022 and loved the immersive experience. Tell us about your vision for the conference and why it was important to create a meeting focused on digital health. 

Sana M. Al-Khatib, MD, MHS: I am so glad to hear that you attended in HRX 2022, because the vision for that meeting was for it to be unique and immersive, and we are carrying this forward in 2023. We want to deliver a unique experience in terms of all these different stakeholders who are interested in digital health coming together to talk about how digital health can help us improve patient outcomes, improve access to care, and achieve wellness. That is an important theme for us this year and I can elaborate on that. But certainly, the experience itself is going to be unique and immersive. I am confident that people will enjoy that aspect of the meeting, but also the content and the different topics and presenters. It is going to be a very interesting meeting and I cannot wait.

HRX 2023 features an incredible array of topics and faculty full of cardiovascular and digital health innovators. Tell us about the new offerings that exist for attendees in 2023. What is the key focus of this year’s program? 

Al-Khatib: One of the biggest things this year is how to apply and implement digital health to achieve wellness. Obviously, there is a lot of that within electrophysiology that we are very excited about, but we are indeed expanding beyond electrophysiology and pulling in expertise from heart failure as well as prevention. So, we have new participants and topics this year that will focus on these important areas, including virtual care, because we believe that this is going to become an important part of how health care is delivered in the future. Not only do we want to envision how that might look, but we want to think through the different steps that will allow us to get there. But while we do that, we want to make sure that we are getting input from the different stakeholders that we do it right, because we want everyone's engagement and we want to be realistic. We want to keep the patient at the center of all these discussions; we did that in 2022, but for 2023, we actually have patients participating in some of the sessions, which I am very excited about. We will hear directly from them in terms of their role in this process and transformation, and what they would like to see happen. We want to offer solutions that work. Last year, we spent a big part of the meeting talking about the challenges and issues in digital health, how to implement digital health, and how to make sure we were not creating a digital divide. Unfortunately, we did not get to delve much into solutions, so that is what this meeting in 2023 will be about. Of course, we will review some of the challenges and issues, but we will make sure that the focus will be on offering and brainstorming solutions that can be implemented that are likely to make an impact. So, what I am most excited about is the patient's role in the meeting and in helping us with this transformation, and continuing to have a lot of other stakeholders involved and focused on these important solutions that will help us in this transformation. One thing to highlight is a debate that I will be moderating on how to make sure that as we go through this transformation that we do not undermine the practice of medicine and that we continue to preserve the clinician-patient relationship. Sometimes through virtual care, we end up losing some of that. So, how do we make sure that we do not lose that clinician-patient relationship? I think that is going to be key. Also, how to address disparities using digital health was a big topic last year. We want to build on what we were able to accomplish last year and expand in terms of how to engage. We talked last year about engaging disadvantaged patients, but what else can be done and what does that engagement look like? We are going to delve into a lot of these interesting and important topics.

What trends dominated digital health in the last year, what are some of the biggest challenges we are currently facing in digital health, and what are some of the most interesting digital health solutions?

Al-Khatib: In terms of the main trends that we see in digital health, telehealth continues to be an important part of what we do. Even though there was a major surge in the use of telehealth during the pandemic, I think many areas in medicine continue to rely heavily on telehealth. So, how do we continue that in the best and most effective way while preserving the relationship between the clinician and patient? We think about telehealth in terms of clinic visits, but is there a place for a virtual hospital, and what might that look like? I think that is really interesting. Another major trend in digital health is the use of sensors. A lot of these wearables that people are using now can monitor so many different things. For an electrophysiologist like me, it is mostly heart rhythm and heart rate, but what the sensors can do now extends beyond that. We want to build on that. There are so many technologies out there—how do they pass the test in terms of being a good technology? We want to make sure that all these technologies are tested in a robust manner, not only in terms of if they can record something or not, but also when we record those data, is it accurate? If we intervene based on those data, for example, based on lifestyle modification, are we helping patients and improving outcomes? Because we do not just want to record vital signs, we want to prove that that will translate into improved patient care and outcomes. We are going to be talking about what is needed to get there and how to ensure that we go through that. Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) is also a big trend in digital health. It will continue to be a big focus for us at this meeting. We are going to talk about how to use AI to improve the delivery of remote and virtual care, predict outcomes for patients, engage with patients, and deliver personalized care—all very important topics. How do we ensure that we are applying AI for the good of humanity rather than for anything that is not good? I am sure you are aware of the different concerns that have been voiced recently about that.

I would say those are the main things: virtual care, the sensors that are becoming ubiquitous, and AI applications. For me, it is also about making sure that as we do all of this, we bring everybody along, including patients and disadvantaged patients, and help improve both access and the connection between clinicians and patients. Therefore, I am very excited about the meeting.

The transcripts have been edited for clarity and length.