Rebecca
Pifer@RebeccaMPifer
March 5, 2020
Dive Brief:
·
Major health tech conference HIMSS20 has been canceled over
public health concerns following the spread of a new coronavirus throughout the
U.S.
·
"Cancellation is unavoidable in order to meet HIMSS'
obligation to protect the health and safety of the global HIMSS
community," conference organizers told vendors Thursday.
·
It is the first time in almost six decades the annual
conference, which draws tens of thousands of attendees from around the world,
has been called off.
Dive Insight:
The news comes
days after it was announced President Donald Trump would speak at the annual
conference, which drew some 45,000 attendees last year and is health IT's
largest event. HIMSS plans to work with the White House to share the
content of Trump's planned remarks,
which insiders believe will be publication of the sweeping final HHS rules
prohibiting information blocking.
HIMSS, which
was still scheduled to proceed as recently as Wednesday night, has now been
derailed by concerns over the coronavirus. The meeting was scheduled to begin
Monday, but some in industry called upon organizers to cancel or postpone the
event as three individuals in Florida were diagnosed with COVID-19.
Eleven people
nationwide have died from the disease thus far.
"We go
hour by hour," spokesperson Karen Groppe told reporters Wednesday.
Many exhibitors
pulled out prior to the conference's cancelation, citing public health concerns
and worries over the wellbeing of their employees. Confirmed pull-outs include
heavy hitters Microsoft Google Cloud, Amazon's AWS cloud
business, Salesforce, Uber Health,
Lyft, Intel and Cisco. Humana, Change Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers and HL7 also dropped out or scaled back their
attendance.
HIMSS took
precautions to lower the potential for virus transmission in the
7-million-square-foot Orange County Convention Center, including three onsite
medical clinics (one just for attendees with flu-like symptoms), an increased
number of hand sanitation sites and access to telemedicine services.
The conference
also said it was working with a panel of third-party medical experts to
determine the viability of the event.
Some time
Thursday, following recent reports from the World Health Organization and the CDC that the potential reach of the
virus had widened significantly, the calculus clearly changed.
"We
recognize all the hard work that so many have put into preparing for their
presentations and panels that accompany every HIMSS conference," HIMSS CEO
said in a statement. "Based on evaluation of evolving circumstances and
coordination with an external advisory panel of medical professionals to
support evidence-based decision making, it is clear that it would be an
unacceptable risk to bring so many thousands of people together in Orlando next
week."
Moves by
several high-profile conferences also factored into the Thursday decision,
conference organizers said.
Shoptalk, a
major retail conference scheduled for later this month with some 8,000
attendees, said Thursday it planned to postpone until mid-September.
Several other large industry conferences that have also canceled in-person
events include Expo West in
Anaheim, California and Seafood Expo in
Boston, Massachusetts.
South by
Southwest in Austin, which attracted 417,000 attendees last year, plans
to go forward, despite the withdrawal of some big
participants including Facebook, Intel and Twitter, as of Thursday afternoon.
However, HIMSS attracted
targeted criticism, given its scale and its topic: health.
"There are
concerns about disproportionate risk to the healthcare system given the unique
medical profile of Global Conference attendees and the consequences of
potentially displacing healthcare workers during a critical time, as well as
stressing the local health systems were there to be an adverse event,"
organizers said.
HIMSS is
working with hotels to address potential reimbursement, and will release more
information on that, along with potential paid attendee and exhibitor badge and
booth space refunds, within the next two weeks.
https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/himss20-cancelled-over-coronavirus-concerns/573575/
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