Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) Adds Fall Meeting
Largest gathering of multidisciplinary wound care clinicians to meet in spring and fall

Millstone Township, NJ (October 10, 2008) – For more than 2 decades, the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care and Wound Healing Society (SAWC/WHS) have hosted thousands of physicians, podiatrists, nurses, physical therapists, researchers, dieticians, and medical professionals involved in wound care and wound healing to discuss the scientific breakthroughs, advances and treatments in the field. As the meeting has grown, so have the American population and its aging community, making proper wound care a challenge in all care settings. To more effectively provide education and information to this growing group of clinicians, nurses and other allied healthcare professionals, SAWC will host 2 events starting in 2009, one in the spring and one in the fall.

SAWC Spring is scheduled for April 26-29, 2009, in Grapevine, Texas, and SAWC Fall is scheduled for September 16-18, 2009, at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center in Washington, D.C. Both symposia will offer the largest clinical educational program and exhibition of products and services for wound care professionals anywhere in the U.S.

“The annual success of SAWC/WHS each spring is a strong testament to the increasing need of medical professionals to use evidence-based protocols to care for patients with, or who are at risk of developing, wounds,” says Randy Robbin, President, Medical Education, NACCME, LLC (North American Center for Continuing Medical Education, LLC). NACCME, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of HMP Communications Holdings, LLC, is the owner of SAWC and ACCME-accredited sponsor of the SAWC CME/CE program.

“Internal surveys have shown that many facilities can send only a limited number of people to attend SAWC/WHS each spring without overburdening their patient load and staffing needs. Adding SAWC Fall to the well established SAWC/WHS Spring meeting will provide twice the opportunity, on a more regional basis, for clinicians to earn CME/CE credits and gain invaluable training from world-class wound care professionals who present at the meetings.”

Wound care has recently become a larger issue in hospitals nationwide. Currently the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is speaking out about hospital-acquired infections, including the need for more vigilant treatment of pressure ulcer wounds that costs approximately 60,000 patients their lives each year in the U.S. Improper wound care can also cause a financial burden. In October, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will no longer reimburse hospitals for the treatment of preventable errors, injuries and infections that occur in facilities. Stage III and IV pressure ulcers are among the preventable conditions the CMS cites. According to the IHI, more than 2.5 million patients are treated for pressure ulcers in acute care facilities annually at a cost of $11 billion.

“The success of SAWC/WHS is based on a very simple formula – targeted session topics designed to address audience practice gaps, leading faculty, the largest display of wound care products and services and the most comprehensive marketing campaign available to promote the value of the event to attendees and exhibitors alike,” adds Robbin. “NACCME plans to apply this same formula to the new SAWC Fall edition.”

HMP Communications, LLC, a sister company to NACCME, LLC, has been contracted to manage logistics for both the SAWC Spring and Fall events, including audience generation through its Wound Care division and acquisition and management of all corporate sponsorships and exhibits.

Jeremy Bowden, Vice President & Group Publisher of the Wound Care division at HMP says, “No other company serving the wound care industry has the audience reach that HMP Communications, LLC brings to bear, reaching more than 175,000 readers through our medical journals that have an interest in wound care including: WOUNDS, Ostomy Wound Management (OWM), Today’s Wound Clinic, Podiatry Today, Skin & Aging, Annals of Long Term Care, Clinical Geriatrics and Managed Care: First Report, and we welcome the opportunity to help NACCME, LLC in continuing to attract the largest wound care audience to SAWC/WHS Spring and building SAWC Fall into an equally dominant meeting.”

SAWC/WHS is the largest gathering of multidisciplinary wound care clinicians in the United States. CME/CE credits are offered for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, podiatrists, physical therapists and dieticians. The Symposium provides comprehensive dissemination of state-of-the art reviews of clinical problems and research information along with the latest information on technological advances and products.

For information about attending the 2009 SAWC/WHS Spring meeting, please visit www.sawc.net or call (800) 237-7285 x 233 to request a brochure. Information regarding the SAWC Fall meeting will follow.

For information on sponsorship and exhibit opportunities, please contact HMP Communications, LLC directly at 610-560-0500 x 203 and ask for Kristi Shelly.

NACCME, LLC is a leading accredited medical education and communications company. CME/CE activities sponsored by NACCME, LLC reach medical professionals in many different formats. Through meetings, publications, and web-based programming, thousands of healthcare practitioners participate in NACCME, LLC activities, expanding their clinical knowledge and competence by examining current medical issues, trends, therapies, and technologies. CME/CE activities sponsored by NACCME, LLC are produced to strengthen practitioner awareness of evidence-based patient care advances in a broad range of therapeutic areas. NACCME, LLC sponsors CME/CE activities for physicians, pharmacists, podiatrists, nurses, physician assistants, and other allied healthcare professionals. NACCME, LLC is committed to improving healthcare practitioner knowledge, competence, and performance, ultimately to improve patient care.

HMP Communications, LLC has spent the past 2 decades focusing on advances in the clinical care and treatment in some of the world’s most debilitating diseases and medical conditions. Today, healthcare professionals consider HMP Communications, LLC medical journals, websites, meetings and symposia as authoritative sources for comprehensive information in the fields of wound care, dermatology, podiatry, cardiovascular care, electrophysiology, long term care, managed care, diabetes, arthritis, and specialized primary care. HMP Communications, LLC journals are both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed to best disseminate educational content in the most effective manner for readers. In addition to online and print media, the company produces and manages tradeshows, conferences, symposia, digital programs and customized programs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Stopping a Killer: LUMEN 2009 Looks to Establish National Protocol for Treating Heart Attack Patients

Number one killer of men and women can exist unchecked by local municipalities

Millstone Township, NJ (July 28, 2008) – It is the very early hours of the morning and you awake with a tightness in your chest. This uncomfortable pressure is making it difficult to breathe, and you feel lightheaded and nauseous. Your first instinct is to shrug off the fear that you might be having a heart attack and attribute your pain to heartburn from overindulging the night before or even food poisoning. Yet if you continue to avoid taking your pain and symptoms seriously, your life is at risk —and the clock is ticking.

According to the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the majority of deaths from STEMI (ST elevation myocardial infarction), a heart attack caused by complete obstruction of a coronary artery, occurs within the first 1 to 2 hours after symptom onset. And, although heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, there is still no protocol in place for an integrated STEMI system and national STEMI policy.

LUMEN 2009: The Symposium on Optimal Treatments for Acute MI launches February 26-28, 2009 in Miami Beach to address the need for establishing protocols nationwide for the appropriate care of acute heart attack patients.

In the scenario above, time is of the essence. Call 9-1-1. Do not drive or have someone drive you. Transportation by EMS is a better option than self-transport because you can be immediately evaluated and have treatment initiated by paramedics prior to arriving at the hospital. The appropriate staff can be called in while you are still in transport.

But even as skilled staff is en route to the hospital and EMS is working to save your life, in most American communities, you are not going to receive the critical care you need. For patients experiencing a heart attack, where time is absolutely critical, there is no established national protocol to treat STEMI patients, one that would ensure patients are routed to a STEMI-certified hospital equipped to not only save the life of the patient, but to make sure minimal damage is done to the heart muscle. Instead, EMS has only one guideline set out by local municipalities — transport the critical care heart attack patient to the closest hospital, often a facility that lacks the equipment and expertise to save the heart attack victim.

STEMI expert Dr. Sameer Mehta and many of his colleagues argue that the U.S. is well behind some of its international counterparts in establishing STEMI protocols to effectively treat these patients in ways that parallel our current national trauma system.

“Level one trauma centers are set up for catastrophic events like car accidents with emergency medical personnel assessing the immediate need of a patient at the scene and then transporting that patient to the closest trauma center equipped to handle that patient’s needs, not the closest hospital. Such patients are also often transported by helicopter to ensure quick, immediate access to quality care,” says Dr. Mehta, Lumen 2009 Program Director and author of the Textbook of STEMI Interventions.

A national initiative to establish STEMI Receiving Centers within hospitals is the backbone of LUMEN 2009: The Symposium on Optimal Treatments for Acute MI. In various European countries, such as Denmark, integrated centers for STEMI care have been operational for several years. In Ottawa, Canada, a program exists under which 800,000 residents of the city have been triaged to receive angioplasty for the occluded artery.

In limited areas of the United States, some integrated systems of triage and transfer for STEMI patients have been created by local emergency service operations. These include the Mayo Clinic, Minneapolis Heart Institute, SOCAL system in Southern California and RACE system in North Carolina. Yet the majority of Americans, even those in large, metropolitan cities, will not be treated successfully for their STEMI. LUMEN 2009 brings together international leaders to discuss needed protocols vital to establishing a national system to combat the number one killer of men and women in the U.S.

“Time = heart muscle,” adds Dr. Mehta, who advocates angioplasty for STEMI patients instead of thrombolytic therapy (drugs), whenever possible. “The longer the time to treatment, the greater the amount of heart muscle affected by deprivation of oxygenated blood and the likelihood that the patient will die or be unable to fully recover.”

The time from the patient’s arrival at the hospital to the opening of their blocked artery, often referred to as door-to-balloon (D2B) time, should be no more than 90 minutes, as recommended by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Associations (ACC/AHA) Clinical Guidelines for STEMI care; any longer than 90 minutes can mean irreversible damage to the heart muscle. Of the 500,000 reported STEMI patients in the U.S. annually, only half find themselves in hospitals capable of performing immediate angioplasty. Although thrombolytics offer relief of symptoms and have the advantage of being administered early and even in the ambulance, a very high proportion of patients do not achieve complete clearing of the blockage and a majority end up also needing angioplasty. The long-term recovery of the heart muscle is better with angioplasty and the risk of stroke is less.

“Establishing a national protocol is vital, and possible. STEMI treatment is not just the domain of the interventional cardiologist; it is a matter of public health policy,” says Dr. Mehta.

LUMEN 2009, the world’s premier STEMI meeting, is expected to draw international experts discussing issues related to STEMI interventions, and key areas of interventional cardiology and vascular interventions. Dr. Sameer Mehta serves as the Director of LUMEN 2009. The four Co-Directors for the CME program include world experts Dr. Samin Sharma (Complex Coronary Interventions), Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu (D2B Processes), Dr. William Hoekstra (Emergency Medicine Pathways for STEMI) and Barbara Unger, RN (STEMI Systems & Cardiovascular Nursing). The innovative CME agenda will include lectures, debates, workshops, certification courses and industry satellite programs. The meeting will be held February 26-28, 2009 at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study, “Prevalence of Heart Disease – United States,” Florida residents rank in the top 10 for high prevalence of heart disease.

LUMEN 2009 will become the one-stop, STEMI educational rendezvous for Clinical and Interventional Cardiologists, Cardiac and Vascular Surgeons, Emergency Department staff, Critical Care Nurses, Cardiovascular Laboratory Technicians and Nurses, Paramedics, and Hospital Administrators who are all invested in optimal outcomes for heart attack patients.To learn more, visit www.LUMENami.com.

LUMEN 2009 is sponsored by the North American Center for Continuing Medical Education (NACCME), awholly-owned subsidiary of HMP Communications Holdings, LLC. NACCME provides a wide array of accredited CME offerings, with industry thought leaders participating inround table meetings, webcasts, symposia, conferences, seminars, podcasts, and satellite programs.

Please contact NACCMEat 609-371-1137 or visit www.naccme.com if you have questions or need additional information.

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