Preview Desert Foot 2019: An Interview with Dr Michael Shore

Ahead of the Desert Foot conference, SmartTRAK interviewed Dr Michael Shore, Director of Medical Education and a founding member of PRESENT e-Learning Systems, to preview the conference which is being held Dec 4-7, 2019 in Phoenix, AZ

The multi-specialty conference provides comprehensive education for the overall management of the high-risk foot and lower extremities for podiatrists and other clinicians. Attendees will benefit from a wide variety of presentations, hands-on workshops and scientific research and will see cutting edge technology presented by the largest medical device and pharmaceutical companies in the industry.

To find out more about Desert Foot 2019, as well as PRESENT e-learning Systems, click on the following video to listen to SmartTRAK’s interview with Dr. Shore. (16:45 min)

View the entire interview transcript below or a PDF version HERE.

A topic outline of the video by timecode is provided below. If you would like to download a complete transcript of the interview, just click here.

To see the Smart TRAK interview page click here.

Timecode:

00:26: First of all, can you tell me what the relationship is between PRESENT e-Learning Systems and Desert Foot?

05:04: Can you tell me a little bit about some of the things we’ll see at this year’s Desert Foot meeting?

09:52: What would you say differentiates Desert Foot from other wound care conferences?

11:13: I noticed the conference focuses on federal service healthcare programs, such as the VA and the Department of Defense. So what's the connection there or why is there a focus on these programs?

12:31: Are there certain products available to patients in these programs that may not be available to podiatrists or other physicians treating Medicare or some of the other private health insurance patients?

13:44: Do you know if there would be any new studies that we should look out for at the meeting this year?

14:52: Lastly, what would you say are some of the top technology trends you see right now in wound care?

Desert Foot 2019:
An Interview with Dr. Michael Shore, DPM

Ahead of the Desert Foot conference, Terry Hayslett, SmartTRAK's Senior Analyst for Advanced Wound Care, interviewed Dr Michael Shore, DPM, Director of Medical Education and a founding member of PRESENT e-Learning Systems to preview the conference which is being held Dec 4-7, 2019 in Phoenix, AZ.

By Terry Hayslett | Senior Analyst, Wound Care

Terry Hayslett: Hello, this is Terry Hayslett with SmartTRAK. Today I am with Dr Michael Shore, director of medical education and founding member of PRESENT e-Learning Systems. Hello Michael, how are you?

Michael Shore: I'm great, Terry. Thanks for your time today.

Terry Hayslett: Michael first of all, can you tell me what the relationship is between PRESENT e-Learning Systems and Desert Foot?

Michael Shore: Desert Foot is one of the six national conferences we put on each year at PRESENT, which focuses on limb salvage, surgical reconstruction and advanced wound care. The major difference between Desert Foot and our other five national conferences, is that Desert Foot is truly a multi-specialty conference where DOs, MDs, PPMS, nurses, PTs, NPs and PAs all come together to learn.

Besides Desert Foot, we also run five other conferences, mainly for podiatrists to do reconstructive surgery and wound care. Which are the PRESENT Treasure Hunt Conference, which is being held at the Hotel Indigo on February 8th to 9th. This is our newest conference and is now the largest conference in Southern California for podiatrists to do wound care and reconstructive surgery. I'm proud to say we doubled it in our first year.

The next conference we do is the Superbones Superwounds East Conference in Teaneck, which occurs on April 3rd to the 5th. This conference is now grown to one of the largest and most important conferences in the Northeast for foot and ankle surgeons. Then we do two very interesting conferences, the PRESENT Podiatric Residency Summit East Conference, also in Teaneck on August 15th to the 17th. The PRESENT Podiatric Residency Education Summit Midwest, which occurs at the Hilton Chicago in Oak Brook Hills on September 25th to the 27th.

Both of these conferences are geared to our surgical community. What we try to do here is we try to really give back to our profession. Alan and I pay for hotel rooms for all the residents in the country. We give them free tuition. Then we let the residency directors come for free. The folks who come to these meetings are all the graduating residents, the residency directors, and the attendants who teach the residents. Then we move on to our Las Vegas meeting, which occurs on October 22nd to the 24th, which is Superbones West, which is also a great wound care reconstructive meeting being held at the M Resort. Finally, we end up with Desert Foot again next year on December 2nd to the 5th.

The reason our conferences are so busy and attract the right attendees is that we are endorsed by 16 Alliance partners who are the biggest board societies and associations in the country. We also have a great academic chairman in Dr Harold Schoenhaus who has made a huge impact in our profession in many ways. But he is truly responsible for our academic online curriculum and surgical agenda at our five conferences all the while working with our very large advisory board. Of course our coaches at Desert Foot who are Dr Anderson, Dr Rogers, Dr Lavery, Dr Serena, who's the current president of the AAWC and Dr Tickner, are all true leaders in medicine today and giants in the field of wound care.

Besides our busy and great conferences, we are also known for our work in online education. PRESENT Podiatry, which is held at podiatry.com, is the number one provider of online medical education for the past 50 years within the podiatric space and has over 11,000 members and over 1,000 residents. Besides PRESENT e-Learning Systems has delivered more CECHs per year online for the podiatry profession than any other online source. Amazingly, we just passed 229,000 lecture views since 2007 and have hundreds of accredited lectures covering a wide variety of topics. PRESENT also runs the approved academics for our surgical podiatric residency programs online. Our lectures are used as a teaching tool for residency directors and residents across the country.

Our PRESENT podiatry curriculum features scheduled weekly lectures like an online university for all first, second and third-year residents in our national podiatric residency community. Our latest exciting news is beginning on January 1st of this year, we introduced a new daily electronic publishing platform that has been integrated into the entire PRESENT Podiatry website. These publications, known as the Podiatry NewsFlash, emphasizes the timely nature of the latest news and commentary in podiatry. PRESENT offers podiatrists in the pharmaceutical, medical device and podiatric services industry a new exciting way of receiving information that will benefit the podiatric community.

This electronic publishing platform receives contributions throughout the year from our 30- member strong PRESENT NewsFlash editorial board and many other contributors around the country and globally. The articles and blogs being contributed consist of news, editorial opinion, medical education and peer mentorship. Their format is text with images and video. A daily email newsflash is sent to all current PRESENT Podiatry members, PRESENT WOC members and all PRESENT conference attendees, currently tens of thousands. Everything is archived on our website at www.podiatry.com.

We have an excellent education track of over 300 to 400 evidence-based lectures that we provide for CME to practicing podiatrists, podiatrists in the VA, Department of Defense, the Public Health Service, Indian Health Services, and to physicians around the country.

Terry Hayslett: Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the exciting things that we'll see at this year's Desert Foot meeting?

Michael Shore: At this year's Desert Foot, we see that the future of wound care is bright. All the technologies are represented by the largest medical device and pharmaceutical companies in the industry. These products are being developed for ease of use and faster healing. The Desert Foot program is designed for lead experts in the field to teach less-experienced clinicians the appropriate use of these products for quicker, faster and better healing of difficult wounds. This will raise the standard of care and give attendees the tools they need to take back to their practices, which they could utilize on Monday morning.

What will differentiate between good practitioners and great practitioners will come down to days- healed efficiency and decreased in pain and discomfort in our patients. What's new to Desert Foot this year will be a whole day of education led by Dr Serena and Tickner and the Association for Advanced Wound Care, AAWC. We are also working with the WOC and certification board in order to have them add faculty to our growing conference. Additionally, we're also working with the Vascular Centers of America and adding their extreme vascular surgeons to all faculty and teaching platforms. We are also hosting a lower extremity bootcamp on wounds, bioburden, edema, biomechanics and more sponsored by 3M.

Our 31 world-renowned faculty will educate our attendees from 44 states this year on exciting lectures on the latest wound care and surgical technologies such as topical oxygen, hyperbaric oxygen, therapies, molecular diagnosis of biofilms, updates on antibiotic therapies and management of diabetic foot infections. We have fabulous workshops, a hands-on experience with the latest wound care products and we have 16 of those. Our attendees will learn new ways to manage chronic wounds with biological tissues, update on vascular diagnosis and management of the critical limb ischemia patient. There will also be updates on offloading and best practices for diabetic foot ulcers from the international working group on the diabetic foot. Desert Foot has always featured the annual Paul Brand lecture where we honor outstanding researchers and clinicians who contributed to the knowledge of the diabetic foot, management of the diabetic Charcot foot and diabetic foot surgery and of course an exciting poster display and competition.

The most exciting news is the acquisition of KCI by 3M this year. Bringing these two companies together provides healthcare providers with a comprehensive curriculum of care for their wound care and surgical patients. What's most exciting will be all the new solutions and innovations we could expect from this new great company merger in the future. At Desert Foot, 3M and KCI will be presenting a symposium titled Spring Into Mechanically-Powered Negative Pressure Wound Therapy for Commitment to Care. Following that, our attendees will have the opportunity to attend a great workshop on putting your hands on mechanically-powered and negative pressure wound therapies case by case.

We also have a great agenda, but I'll be happy to point out must-see lectures and symposiums by the following faculty. Dr Anderson, one of our co-chairs, is doing a number of lectures, but one talk is on limb preservation cases where he points out, he'll be talking about early and aggressive treatment of diabetic foot infections. He'll also be doing a promotional symposium for EO2 on cutaneous oxygen therapy. There are some very convincing studies now supporting cutaneous oxygen therapy. This treatment modality is on its way to being the standard. Also Dr Lavrey, one of our co-chairs, will be speaking on the new census publication for International Working Group on the diabetic foot for prevention and offloading.

Additionally, we have a number of exciting symposium. Our symposium are always handpicked by our team here. We really feel we want to put out there the best technologies from the best companies to really give our doctors the best opportunities to have tremendous outcomes in treating their patients. ConvaTec will be putting on a symposium called Transforming Wound Healing with Hydrofiber Technology. Ergo Medical will be implementing the Three Cs of Compression, Compliance, Consistency, and Continuity. Emily Greenstein will be putting on a symposium as well for KCI and 3M going through their entire portfolio of products. Organogenesis will be putting on a symposium of Getting Wounds Moving with a Comprehensive Portfolio of Skin Substitutes. One of the most exciting symposiums this year will be by Jodi Schoenhaus and Michael Desvigne, Different by Design, New Biological Innovations for Complex Surgical Wound Management, which could really be a game changer for our field.

Finally Rafi (Rafael Mazuz), the first time working with this esteemed gentlemen, will be talking about better ways of thinking about a wound care patients through case management, quality improvement, operational excellence and leveraging technologies beyond just topical products. This will truly free up critical resources for providers, clinicians and patients and something we should all be thinking about. These are just some of the important technologies being taught at the 2019 Desert Foot conference, but there is no question that thought leaders and companies at Desert Foot are truly the future of wound care, surgical reconstruction and limb salvage.

Terry Hayslett: Wow. It sounds like some really exciting things will be happening this year. It sounds like you have some great companies and some really innovative products. What would you say differentiates Desert Foot from some of the other wound care conferences?

Michael Shore: I think the biggest differentiating factor and why we always get a lot of companies coming to this conference, this year we're expecting between 90 and 100 individual companies coming to the meeting, is first and foremost the important differences are our attendees are the decision makers. We provide the most comprehensive education for overall management of the high-risk foot, lower extremity at the most affordable tuition in the entire educational landscape.

Our $99 tuition registration fee is by far the best value in the country. We not only provide cutting-edge presentations by world-class lecturers, but we also incorporate 16 hands-on workshops along with our didactic presentations. This will allow physicians and nurses to get up close to the latest technologies at no extra cost, not to mention the fact that we're at the beautiful Sheraton Grand, which is a fabulous venue.

In a nutshell, our $99 registration fee, our state-of-the-art rotating workshops combined with great didactic education gives our attendees not only the latest wound care education, but actual opportunities to utilize products in a controlled environment and the ability to ask questions of experts from doctors from the VA, Department of Defense, Indian Health, Public Health Service in the private sector.

Terry Hayslett: I noticed the conference focuses on federal service health care programs such as the VA and the Department of Defense. What's the connection there? Why is there a focus on these programs?

Michael Shore: Well, the Desert Foot meeting eventually started as a service to VA and federal practitioners in 2004 since there was no meeting that focused on their needs. All of whom, as we know, deal with a great variety of high-risk patients. We're also able to bring a high-quality educational experience to them at a low cost. Our meeting grew as a result of our quality and our ability to provide educational experience in meeting the needs of all federal practitioners, including the Indian Health Services. Nonetheless, we soon realized that many non-federal commissions had discovered our meeting, especially from around the country and the leading academic teaching institutions, and the numbers of these attendees has progressively grown as well.

Our fastest growth, however, is in the private sector now. Today we partner with other organizations such as the Association for Advanced Wound Care and the American Board of Podiatric Medicine to assist them in meeting their own educational needs jointly with those of our legacy attendees, which are the federal service. In a nutshell, this is the only wound care conference where federal and non-federal healthcare practitioners can attend and learn from each other as they practice in very different clinical settings, meeting federal and non-federal healthcare systems.

Terry Hayslett: Very good. Are there certain products available to patients in these programs that may not be available to podiatrists or other positions treating Medicare or some of the other private health insurance patients?

Michael Shore: Yes. Many early-stage companies with new products and devices start their sales activities in the federal system that does not require specific CMS approval or coding for reimbursement. However of course, all such products are fully approved by the FDA and federal regulators before they can be marketed to the military, VA or federal services. As a result, we'll see a lot of new products this year. The VA typically gets new products before the rest of the public has access to them. They will be displayed at Desert Foot.

This year, there are some new wound care companies that we're going to be seeing this year. One is a RenovoDerm who has the Phoenix dressing. One is Imbed which has the Microlyte AG dressing. The other one is Olaregen, which has the Excellagen dressing. Finally, Zipline Medical, a new and great technology company will be educating our attendees on a new way to close wounds very quickly and easily. Another example of a company starting work in the VA is Podimetrics, which also has great potential for limb loss.

Terry Hayslett: Thanks, Michael. Thanks.

Michael Shore: Of course.

Terry Hayslett: Let's move on to talk a little bit about studies. Do you know if there would be any new studies that we should look out for at the meeting this year?

Michael Shore: This meeting is packed with new studies. In fact, very important ones. First and foremost at Desert Foot this year, Dr Guberman will be lecturing on cyclical topical multi-modal oxygen therapy. This was a new study. It was published in the October issue of the Journal of Diabetes Care and highlights the benefits of topical oxygen therapy for wound care patients. Additionally, Dr Serena will be presenting on a BlastX trial, which is one of the few clinical trials looking at a combination of products. In this case, BlastX, the VAC and MolecuLight. He'll also be presenting on the recent results from the largest trials on wound infection conducted as well and to be doing the data review analysis comparing Kent Imaging to transcutaneous oxygen measurement.

Additionally, Windy Cole will be speaking on amniotic use and PF use for organogenesis. Dr. Schoenhaus And Dr Desvigne will be speaking on the latest exciting innovations for MTF, which have a potential to not only save healthcare dollars but lives.

Terry Hayslett: Fantastic. Lastly Michael, what you say some of the top technology trends you see right now in wound care?

Michael Shore: Right now regenerative medicine continues to lead the way. What's so interesting is foot and ankle continues to be the fastest growing segment in the orthopedic arena. Of course from the recent data, we're seeing a great renewal of interest in topical oxygen therapies in general since they are essential elements for wound repair. Other technologies sparking great interest this year, a variety of tissue substitutes available to our attendees, including ongoing research with autologous platelet and blood coagulation products. Diagnostic technologies are also a great interest such as regional profusion imaging and fluorescence imaging of wounds to detect bioburden.

Additionally, I think a lot of the new technologies will be formed around mobile documentation solutions. I think cellular and tissue products category is going to grow, artificial intelligence. What's most exciting is the wearable technology is we're seeing more and more of this. Additionally, there's a huge focus on biofilm diagnosis and the management, which is another reason we're super excited to be seeing KCI and 3M merge as they have some outstanding products for the management of biofilm and bioburden. Their three main products are BlastX gel, Tegaderm AG Mesh and KerraCel AG.

We're also going to see some great things coming out of the negative pressure sector of advanced wound care products. As we know, Acelity is the only company that is able to offer an entire line of products that covers inpatient to outpatient.

Terry Hayslett: Outstanding. Sounds like this is going to be a really exciting meeting, Michael. I really thank you for taking the time to speak to me and look forward to the meeting.

Michael Shore: That's great, Terry. It was great to speak to you today. I look forward to seeing you at the meeting and helping move this field of wound care as far and as fast as we can.