Abstract
In response to the travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019; caused by SARS-CoV-2) pandemic and recognizing that virtual meetings and symposia may play an important role in 2021, the education committee reviewed future directions and ideas for virtual symposia over a wide diversity of topics.
To say that 2020 was a tumultuous year for the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) and its education committee is an understatement. As the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019; caused by SARS-CoV-2) pandemic swept across the globe, it affected everything in its path. The committee had developed plans to conduct rheumatology-dermatology educational symposia during 2020 in many countries including India, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Europe, the Middle East, and several cities in the United States. At first, it was unclear how long the effect of the pandemic would last, but as the reality of prolonged travel restrictions sank in, the committee pivoted to developing and conducting virtual educational programs, which have proceeded with relatively good success and attendance. Prior to March 2020, GRAPPA conducted an in-person symposium in Taiwan during the fourth quarter of 2019, with Elaine Husni from Cleveland and Amit Garg from New York (USA) in collaboration with Taiwanese experts. GRAPPA also conducted an in-person symposium in Mumbai, India, in which Deepak Jadon, a rheumatologist from Cambridge, and Laura Savage, a dermatologist from Leeds (UK) presented education information with local experts from India. Philip Helliwell also led a symposium in Dubai. Since then, several symposia, supported by individual pharmaceutical companies, have been conducted in Taiwan (Taiwan Dermatology Association meeting), Hong Kong, Dubai, and the UK. In what has become a regular tradition, GRAPPA teamed with the SPondyloArthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN) and Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) to conduct a psoriatic arthritis-axial spondyloarthritis (PsA-axSpA) symposium at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting, with 276 attendees. The faculty included Lianne Gensler (AxSpA Year in Review), Deepak Jadon (PsA Year in Review), Dafna Gladman (Axial PsA), and Denis Poddubnyy (Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Sacroiliac Joints)
The GRAPPA 2020 annual meeting, conducted in July, was completely virtual in format. The technological support for the meeting was provided by a group from the UK known as Nucleus Global, using a combination of prerecorded lectures, in-person (albeit virtual) panel discussions with active use of the chat function for questions, virtual live breakout groups, and workshops. This meeting was attended by 351 people, which was more than any in-person GRAPPA meeting in history. Attendees expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the quality of educational content and the format in the circumstances, recognizing that nothing quite replaces the value of face-to-face contact and the many spontaneous discussions and friendships that grow in an actual live meeting. A bonus of the virtual meeting format is that lectures and panel discussions are recorded and archived so that they may be viewed on demand.
With the experience of conducting this successful meeting under our belt, the GRAPPA Education Committee responded to a request for proposal from Pfizer for a grant to develop a virtual education series covering PsA, psoriasis, and axSpA that would have an international scope. To bring in more expertise in the field of axSpA, the committee reached out to the SPARTAN association to partner in this grant. A steering committee comprising members of each association’s education committees and members from the patient research partners (PRPs) are partnering with Nucleus Global, which has successfully tendered for technological support. A series of 6 virtual seminars is to be conducted from January through June 2021. The content of these workshops will include clinical features, classification, and epidemiology; pathophysiology/genetics; assessment, associated conditions and comorbidities, treatment, and “hot topics.” Hot topics will include pediatric disease, ethnicity and race (including racial disparities in care), and male/female differences. Recognizing that the realistic attention span of an attendee for a virtual meeting is shorter than in a live meeting, each workshop will be 90 minutes in length, including prerecorded lectures by 2 rheumatologists representing PsA and axSpA, and a dermatologist representing psoriasis, with a live panel discussion and a question-and-answer period involving rheumatologists, dermatologists, and patients. Content developers will prepare slide presentations for the recorded sessions. Each workshop will be conducted twice within a week, to optimally accommodate attendees in different time zones (Americas and Europe/Asia). Audience generation will be conducted by the administrators of GRAPPA and SPARTAN. The prerecorded lectures and panel discussions will be archived for future on-demand viewing on the GRAPPA website. It is anticipated that the lectures and format will be reformatted for other virtual workshop series. Advantages of the virtual format are the absence of cost for venue, travel, food, and beverages, although this is at least partially replaced by the cost of technology support. It is also possible that more people will be able to attend a virtual format. Disadvantages include inability to interact in person and interact with patients for physical examinations and ultrasound, although we can still include the patient journey by involving patients in the virtual panels.
Continuing medical education (CME) companies have reached out to engage with GRAPPA to develop educational programs about PsA and psoriasis. These programs will be multisponsored (i.e., not sponsored by a single pharmaceutical company) and will include both rheumatologists and dermatologists.
The GRAPPA Education Committee includes the following members: Philip Mease, Amit Garg, Elaine Husni, Kristina Callis-Duffin (USA), Phillip Heliwell, Ade Adebajo, Vinod Chandran (Canada), Enrique Soriano (Argentina), Katy Leung (Hong Kong), Wolf-Henning Boehncke (Switzerland), Luis Puig (Spain), Kurt De Vlam (Belgium), Ashish Mathew (India), Jeff Chau (PRP, Hong Kong), and Arnon Katz (PRP, Israel). This membership represents a broad geographic distribution, spanning multiple continents and including PRPs, rheumatologists, and dermatologists.
Future activities will include the feasibility to expand into social media networks, including use of podcasts and presentation of education regarding the updated GRAPPA treatment recommendations when they become available in 2021. GRAPPA looks forward to working with multiple sponsors and collaboration with other associations in virtual presentations, which allows us to have a truly global educational reach.
Footnotes
As part of the supplement series GRAPPA 2020, this report was reviewed internally and approved by the Guest Editors for integrity, accuracy, and consistency with scientific and ethical standards.
PJM received research grants, consultation fees, and/or speaker honoraria from AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Galapagos, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, SUN Pharma, and UCB. AG received grants from/is an investigator for National Psoriasis Foundation, UCB, and Incyte, and is a consultant/on the advisory board for AbbVie, Amgen, Asana Biosciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Incyte, Janssen, Pfizer, UCB, and Viela Biosciences. PSH has no conflicts of interest.
This paper does not require institutional review board approval.
- Copyright © 2021 by The Journal of Rheumatology
