Radiology Business Management Association postpones annual meeting due to COVID-19
The Radiology Business Management Association is delaying its in-person annual meeting by six months due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Virginia-based group announced on Wednesday.
PaRADdigm was originally set to run April 11-14 in Las Vegas but will now move to Oct. 17-20. RBMA said the postponement will allow attendees to focus on the conference’s programming, rather than the pandemic, this fall and allow for additional prep time.
“The longer lasting developments surrounding COVID-19 have made it imperative to postpone the April 2021 PaRADigm Conference,” Executive Director Bob Still said in a statement. “We are fully committed to safely resuming in-person meetings and looking forward immensely to welcoming the industry back in October for our 2021 conference in Las Vegas.”
Still and colleagues emphasized that health and safety “continue to be our top priorities.” They hope the recent launch of COVID vaccinations and adherence to safety protocols will allow for travel and public gatherings by the fall. PaRADigm’s facilities are also large enough to allow for social distancing, they added, and the conference will offer an online component for those who cannot attend in person.
RBMA certainly isn’t alone, as numerous medical conferences were shelved for virtual versions over the past year. Many plan to keep things that way in 2021, including the Society of Interventional Radiology and American College of Radiology, which are hosting their annual meetings online in March and May, respectively. Meanwhile, other such as the European Society of Radiology (March in Vienna) and RSNA (December in Chicago) are hoping to offer a hybrid format that includes both components, Medscape reported last month.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.