Due to the ongoing risks arising from COVID-19, GW-ICC 2020 was held entirely online from Monday through Sunday, October 19 to 25.
GW-ICC offerred “Academic Feast" in 2020, which was comprised a wide range of innovative educational programs as well as opportunities for scientific exchange and engagement with international experts. GW-ICC had 87 academic forums and hold more than 980 academic activities in 14 sub-specialties and inter-disciplines, which allowed participants to fully immerse themselves in the latest and most advanced scientific knowledge available to date.
The 7/12/25 format (7 day, 12 hours/day, 25 live channels) allowed GW-ICC 2020 to offer a much wider range content, formats and targeted educational programs. While some channels focused on traditional cardiovascular specialties–hypertension, coronary intervention, arrhythmia, and cardiovascular imaging–additional channels focus on the study of domestic and foreign medical guidelines, graduate and specialist training, clinical case discussions, and "Meet-the-Experts." Cardiovascular specialists can develop their schedules based on their personal needs, as well as their professional development interests, such as clinical and scientific research.
Fun & Exciting – Workshops, Contests and Videos
GW-ICC continued to cooperate with international societies to develop training workshops this year, but we focused on making them fun and exciting. These included a cardiovascular knowledge competition, case competition, ECG contest and other events focus on our younger doctors. Our new "GW-ICC Discovery" Channel highlighted the extraordinary journeys of cardiovascular pioneers and academic leaders in the form of short documentaries that we hope will inspire young people to pursue their dreams.
A Global Cardiology Conference
Twenty-seven of the world's most influential cardiovascular societies have confirmed their participation in GW-ICC 2020. For the first time, societies from South America participated, and they joined us in providing an insightful comparison of similarities and differences in cardiovascular science across five continents. The leadership of our long-term partners, the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the World Heart Federation (WHF) not only joined our Opening Ceremony, but they continued to host joint sessions with leaders of GW-ICC to discuss the latest and most important developments in cardiology. Our esteemed journal partners, Circulation, the JACC Journal family of publications, European Heart Journal and JAMA Cardiology highlighted new advances in cardiovascular science and share their importance of these advancements to clinicians in Asia. As always, other overseas peers and academic institutions also joined GW-ICC.
Creating an Asian Nexus
In recognition of Asia’s huge population, imbalanced economic development and the region’s heavy cardiovascular burden, GW-ICC established the Asian Heart Association (AHS). AHS brings together 38 leading Asian cardiovascular societies to launched a platform for building a healthy Asia and for creating an "Asian Nexus" for cardiovascular diagnosis, treatment and research. AHS includes the Cardiological Society of India (CSI), the Philippine Heart Association (PHA), and the Heart and Health Foundation of Turkey (HHFT), among others.
2020 marks the first-ever Asian Heart Society Congress 2020, which was held together with GW-ICC. Healthcare professionals who shared an interest in supporting the buildout of this Asia-focused initiative are welcome to join and to participate at this early stage, too.
GW-ICC 2020 was constituted an “Academic Week" covering all cardiovascular disciplines across five continents. We hope to advance hand-in-hand with cardiology professionals and friends from all walks of life to realize the dream of lowering China’s cardiovascular burden!
