2021 Candian Liver Meeting

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 4^th annual Canadian Liver Meeting (CLM) was delivered virtually for the first time on May 2-5, 2021. The CLM theme, ‘Minimizing disparity on the Path to Viral Hepatitis Elimination’, was a collaboration between the Canadian Association of the Study of the Liver (CASL), the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C (CanHepC) and the Canadian Association of Hepatology Nurses (CAHN).  For the first time, this year’s meeting collaborated with the American Association of the Study of the Liver (AASLD) for the inaugural North American Viral Hepatitis Elimination Summit, a two day symposium within the CLM.

There were 625 registrants from around the world, 50 of those being active CAHN members. CAHN’s program was well attended with 120-170 people per session.  We had over 7 hours of presentations, 17 presenters which included, which included, two hepatologists, a dietitian, and fourteen nurses. The overall satisfaction of the CAHN program was 4.5/5. The most attended talk was Nurse Led Models of Care and Nursing Strategies to Reach 2030 Elimination Goal. The agenda was developed primarily from topic suggestions by attendees at the CLM and CAHNference 2020, directly reflecting what our membership was asking for. It included nurse led models of care, case studies, and updates on fatty liver and autoimmune liver diseases. The program topics ranged from diagnosis and management of various liver diseases to our final session on progression, diagnosis, and management of end stage liver disease. We had our first Nursing Debate – virtual vs. in person care – along with many first time CAHN presenters. It was exciting to hear the amazing work our CAHN nurses are doing across the country, giving us so many things to learn from, share, and adapt in our own work environments. Thank you to all our presenters, who so generously share their experiences and knowledge with us.

The meeting platform worked very well, with multiple steams of talks going on at the same time, ability to chat with attendees, and sponsor ‘virtual booths’ we could visit. Don’t forget you can go back to the platform and view the sessions again.

We are already busy planning our upcoming CAHNference 2021 and the evaluations collected at the end of the CLM are being used to inform this agenda. If there are any topics you wish covered or are interested in presenting, please contact Danae Sale, our administrative consultant, at admin@cahn.ca. Thank you to our presenters, who so generously share their experiences and knowledge with us.