The 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting held in Cleveland last month was a huge success. My profound thanks go out to the 2023 ASM Program Chairs who helped to make this year’s meeting one of the best ever at HFSA: Chair Akshay Desai, MD and Co-Chairs Zach Cox, PharmD, Windy Alonso, PHD, RN and Prateeti Khazanie, MD.

These leaders identified a number of goals for ASM 2023, including:

• Increasing the amount and quality of science presented, 
   
• Improving the abstract experience for presenters and attendees, 
   
• Improving the mobile app, and 
   
• Maintaining the importance of networking as part of the meeting experience

Improved Science

There were three outstanding plenary sessions. The Saturday keynote address by Elizabeth McNally, MD, PhD on "The Promise of Gene-Targeted Therapies for HF" kicked off the meeting with a look at the future of new therapies for patients. The Sunday and Monday plenary sessions were focused on late-breaking clinical trial presentations with the addition of expert commentaries for each presentation. There was also a rapid-fire session for late-breaking abstracts.

Enhanced Abstract Experience 

The HFSA team wanted to make sure that all abstract presenters had a positive experience at ASM. Several new features were introduced including:

• 30-minute presentation times for ePosters,
   
• Abstract advocate assignments to each session to increase engagement with presenters,
   
• Assisted listening devices utilized at the oral abstract stage, and
   
• Abstracts could be accessed throughout the meeting, not just during exhibit hours

Mobile app 

We heard you when you asked for us to improve the mobile app. This year the mobile app was simple to use, had better data, and was easier to search for presenters, individual talks, and abstracts. There were also additional way-finder signs and the new schedule at a glance brochure that allowed attendees to quickly identify room locations.

Networking
 
The Heart of Rock & Roll Reception at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was outstanding! Attendees socialized, networked, sang, and generally rocked out! It was a great way to celebrate HFSA. There were also two very well attended receptions in the HFSA Lounge – the Women in Heart Failure and the Nurse Networking lunch.

Several new initiatives were also launched at ASM 2023:

• Kick-off Sessions. There were three programs offered before the opening of the exhibit hall on Friday evening. The State of the Specialty Town Hall highlighted what HFSA is doing about the challenges with the AHFTC Fellowship and the future of heart failure professionals
   
• Case Competition. The first Annual HFSA Case Competition was held and will become an ongoing part of ASM
   
• 30-Minute Need-to-Know Sessions. These new sessions were developed with the recognition that everyone learns differently and ASM needs to offer more programming options
   
• Research Hub. The Research Hub, located in the Exhibit Hall, offered six different talks planned by the HFSA Research Committee. Topics included AI and research, patient-reported outcomes and clinical trial design
   
• JCF Lecture Series. JCF Central was the hub for all things about JCF. Included in the area were two talks – one on pregnancy and heart failure and the other on heart failure epidemiology and outcome statistics

Now… ASM 2023 by the numbers: 

• 2,262 attendees
• 578 first time attendees
• Over 90 international attendees
• 50-plus exhibitors
• 38 scientific sessions 
• 14 abstract presentation sessions
• 9 Satellite Symposia
• 8 Industry Expert Theaters
• 7 PIT Lounge talks
• 6 Research Hub talks
• 6 Contemporary Forums
• 4 workshops
• 3 plenary sessions
• 2 receptions in the HFSA Lounge
• 2 JCF Lecture series talks
• and 1 Heart of Rock & Roll Reception!

If you were not able to attend the meeting, you can pre-order ASM OnDemand in the HFSA Learning Center now! Content will be available starting November 20. And I look forward to seeing you in Atlanta for ASM 2024!

James C. Fang, MD, FHFSA
HFSA President 2023-2024