'See' you in September

We made the decision to transition the HME News Business Summit in September to a virtual event pretty early on during the coronavirus pandemic.

In addition to the uncertainty that faces us in the fall, we knew that if we didn't have a face-to-face event, we wanted to give ourselves enough time to plan a virtual event that wasn't just an afterthought.

With the gracious approval of our sponsors (thank you Brightree, Fischer & Paykel, Allegiance Group, TIMS Software, Sunset Healthcare Solutions, Prochant and ACU-Serve!), we've been working behind the scenes to make this year's Summit one of the best yet.

More on that in a minute.

First, let's address the elephant in the room: Will it feel like the usual Summit?

In one regard, probably not: It's hard to replicate those cocktail napkin conversations and networking opportunities with a virtual event.

But we're sure going to try!

We're planning to create a Slack account for the event with channels for specific sessions to encourage conversations among attendees.

We're also planning a virtual happy hour to break up the week's sessions.

From an education perspective, though, it should feel much like the usual Summit, with one-hour presentations, including time for Q&A. In fact, having a virtual event that requires no travel and hotel expenses has helped us draw some pretty big-name speakers this year, including:

• A hospital exec on the importance of remote monitoring technologies in caring for patients in rural populations—and now, patients who are isolating at home
• A panel of the largest HME providers in the country on how the pandemic is finally hitting home the importance of post-acute care
• A panel of large investment bankers on larger health care trends, consolidation and more
• A panel of CEOs from the HME industry's public manufacturers on market trends

We'll be offering passes to the Summit, which will comprise two sessions per day for three days (Sept. 15, 16, 17), and we think there'll be a number of sessions that will make it worth your time and the registration fee.

I'll miss seeing all of your friendly faces in person, but I look forward to “seeing” you in whatever way I can in September.