ACC’s inaugural Advancing Cardiovascular Care of the Oncology Patient course (click here for agenda) was held February 17-18, 2017, in Washington, DC. Led by Course Directors Ana Barac, MD, PhD, FACC (Cardio-oncology Section Chair) and Bonnie Ky (Cardio-oncology Council member), this educational offering provided attendees with clinically relevant, state-of-the-art, best practice strategies in the assessment, diagnosis and management of cardiovascular concerns for patients with cancer and those requiring survivorship care. The program was attended by 236 healthcare professionals. While the majority of participants resided in the United States, 20 attendees were international, and 36% were members of the Cardio-oncology section. Most attendees had between 0-5 years of experience in Cardio-oncology and few had formal training in Cardio-oncology, indicating they had no access to Cardio-oncology expertise in their healthcare system.

Two popular sessions that gleaned perceived improvements in knowledge and competence were Practice Readiness: Building a Cardio-Oncology Clinic and Cardio-Oncology Team and The Numbers Game: Coding and Billing Applying the New Quality Payment Program (aka MACRA) to Cardio-Oncology. The largest perceived improvements in knowledge and competence were related to the course learner objective “Prepare at least two practice improvement business tactics such as referral process or coding” with the second highest gains in both knowledge and competence linked to the course learner objective concerning the ability to “identify best practices when developing the cardio-oncology team to improve patient outcomes”.

When asked on the evaluation survey, 88% of attendees said they would likely attend this course again in the future.

This was the best conference I have ever attended. It was practical, applicable to every day clinical practice. An essential "boot camp" for those learning cardio-oncology from the experts in the field!

-2017 Course Attendee

SAVE THE DATE!  Advancing Cardiovascular Care of the Oncology Patient

Saturday, February 17 and Sunday, February 18, 2018

The Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.