As the pandemic continues to surge across the United States, traditional in-person events are finding new and creative ways to deliver important education on patient care. To meet demands in education as well as varied stay-at-home policies, the Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit (IAS) announced on May 4 that the meeting will move to a virtual format on July 10 to 12, 2020. The change to digital comes after the meeting postponed from its standard spring date to July.
“Understanding the diagnosis, management, and comorbidities of our complex set immune-mediated inflammatory diseases requires facilitated communication and collaboration now more than ever,” said co-chair Joseph Merola, MD, MMSc, vice chair of clinical trials and innovation and associate professor of dermatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. “We have to find ways to quickly share information in an interdisciplinary manner in a rapidly evolving situation. The IAS platform is crucial to our ability to share lessons learned through this health crisis across disciplines caring for our immune-mediated diseases.”
The immersive event will continue to deliver the latest in research on immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), including psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn disease, and ulcerative colitis. This latest shift to virtual allows attendees to connect with peers and experts in the fields of dermatology, rheumatology, and gastroenterology from the comfort of home.
“During this unprecedented time in medicine, the virtual IAS meeting will allow us an important opportunity to collaborate and integrate our approach to autoimmune diseases,” said co-chair Mital Patel-Cohen, MD, associate dermatologist at Summit Medical Group MD Anderson Cancer Institute in Florham Park, NJ.
The program packs a number of intriguing sessions, including case reports from faculty on varying approaches to care, roundtable discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on autoimmune diseases and their therapies, and presentations on:
- The current state of psoriasis treatment with targeted therapy;
- How to optimize treatment regimens by comparing therapeutic drug monitoring vs empiric dosing;
- The latest in research on Janus kinase inhibitors for the treatment of IMIDs; and
- The future of checkpoint inhibitor therapy for patients with IMIDs.
“Although the meeting may be virtual, the information, updates, guidances, and pathways, along with interactive discussions with faculty, will be real-life, timely, and integrated between our immune-mediated disease colleagues,” said senior advisor Stephen B. Hanauer, MD, medical director of the Digestive Health Center of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL.
Similar to the traditional in-person meeting, IAS will feature a virtual exhibit hall where attendees can request more information about an organization and its product offerings. Those who request information from different exhibitors are entered in a drawing to win a complimentary registration package for next year’s in-person IAS meeting, scheduled to take place April 16-18, 2021, at the Westin Boston Waterfront.
As an added benefit, attendees will have 12-month access to all presentations as part of their registration for the virtual event, so there is no need to worry about missing a presentation. Up to 22.5 CME/CNE/CPE credits are available for the IAS virtual experience.
Senior advisor Joel M. Gelfand, MD, MSCE, professor of dermatology and epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, added, “To combat a pandemic, we need science and multidisciplinary collaboration, which is the heart of IAS!”
Visit www.iasmeeting.com for more information and to register for the upcoming IAS virtual experience.
Disclosure: Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit is an event run by HMP Global, the publisher of The Dermatologist.
