From the Field: Call for Workshops

The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) has announced the theme for the 14th Annual Diagnostic Error in Medicine Conference – SIDM2021 taking place October 25-27, 2021. The theme — Reducing Disparities; Improving Diagnosis — will include keynotes and panels that will look at how social determinants of health can impact diagnostic decision making. As always, the conference will also showcase research, education, patient engagement, and practice improvement developments in the field of diagnostic quality and safety.

Ron Wyatt, MD, MHA, Vice-President and Patient Safety Officer at MCIC Vermont and Co-Chair of the SIDM2021 Conference Planning Committee, articulated a vision for the conference, where we would come together as a community to better understand all types of disparities, including race, gender, and age. “We need to have difficult, but important conversations about implicit bias and look at how disparities and inequalities contribute to misdiagnosis and diagnostic delays. We will all have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable during these discussions.”

SIDM recently issued a Call for Workshops for the conference where they are seeking high quality interactive workshops that provide conference attendees with actionable knowledge or key takeaways. The Call for Workshops closes April 6; a Call for Abstracts will be announced in mid-April.

Peter Provonost, MD, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer at University Hospitals and Co-Chair of the SIDM2021 Conference Planning Committee, noted that “the pandemic has brought into sharp focus the impact of disparities on health care quality. Overlooked however, has been how disparities have long affected the ability to get an accurate, timely, and well-communicated diagnosis.”

The conference will be preceded on Sunday, October 24, with the annual SIDM Patient Summit – with a focus on disparities as they relate to the disability community. This year’s conference will also highlight the latest research in the field through poster and abstract sessions. Additionally, there will be more networking opportunities for attendees.

SIDM2021 brings together physicians, patients, advanced practice clinicians, and other allied health professionals, as well as researchers, institutional leaders, policymakers, educators, and trainees to highlight and share recent innovations to improve the diagnostic process.

Funding for the conference was made possible [in part] by grant number 1R13HS027529-01 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and by support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

To stay abreast of conference news, visit www.improvediagnosis.org/SIDM2021.