ACC celebrates 75 years of education and innovation, now looks to the future
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Key takeaways:
- One priority for the American College of Cardiology is getting an independent board for CV medicine.
- Another is further integrating health equity issues in education and training of cardiologists.
ATLANTA — An independent board for cardiovascular medicine and more integration of health equity issues in education and training of cardiologists are among the priorities of the American College of Cardiology, its president said.
ACC President B. Hadley Wilson, MD, FACC, commemorated the college’s 75th year and imagined its future role in cardiovascular care during opening remarks at the ACC’s Scientific Session.
“This year, alongside our 75th anniversary, we embark on our next chapter, with the next 5-year strategic plan,” Wilson said. “We will be focused on five major initiatives that include addressing health equity and developing actionable tools to address disparities, increasing awareness and embedding health equity into education and training. We will also be assessing our educational portfolio to ensure more personalized and interactive experiences ... to provide the education you need when you need it. A transformative shift to sustaining professional excellence through continuous cardiovascular clinical competence is also on our dashboard.”
Wilson, who is also executive vice chair of Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute/Atrium Health and clinical professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, said the ACC is “excited and optimistic” about efforts with other cardiovascular societies to create a new, independent board for cardiovascular medicine. “Our application to this new board has been submitted to the American Board of Medical Specialties, and we hope to have a positive response in a few months,” he said.
Other points of emphasis for the ACC in the next 5 years include “enabling guidance at the point of care and care transformation,” Wilson said. “In both cases, collaborations with partner societies, MedAxiom, health systems and other stakeholders around innovative solutions will be key to driving improved patient outcomes, putting actionable knowledge literally at your fingertips, defining best practices in cardiovascular care.”
Contributing to this care transformation will be artificial intelligence, remote patient monitoring, big data, wearables and digital health, he said. “The ACC Innovation Program, led by Chief Innovation Officer Ami Bhatt, MD, FACC, is hard at work identifying how best to leverage these innovations to aid clinicians in caring for the growing global burden of cardiovascular disease and enabling equitable, high-quality cardiovascular care in the communities where people live. Already, clinical trials testing gene-editing technologies to address genetic factors contributing to cardiovascular disease, and AI-driven algorithms are being piloted to provide more precise and rapid diagnosis along with personalized treatment plans. According to Forbes, we can expect AI algorithm implementation to save upward of $150 billion in the next 3 to 5 years.”
In the face of this development, “it’s important that we not surrender our responsibility for verifying the data that is generated, and ensuring fair interpretation of its output,” he said.
The hospital of the future may have ambient sensors, AI, natural language processing, video platforms, automatic creation of visit notes to the electronic health record, smaller and more portable medical equipment, surgery in one room from admission to discharge and AI-directed care that enables home-based diagnoses and earlier interventions, “and the ACC will be with you on this journey,” Wilson said.
“Let us continue on this elevated digital highway together, realizing our full potential and ensuring a legacy that extends for another 75 years and beyond,” he said.
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Wilson BH. Opening session. Presented at: American College of Cardiology Scientific Session; April 6-8, 2024; Atlanta.
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