Helping Attendees Meet Together With Confidence

The Meetings and Events Industry has been heavily impacted by the COVID pandemic, and there are many lessons meeting professionals and the industry as a whole have learned when it comes to making events safer. InHouse Physicians has been providing Health Security and on-site medical support for meetings for over 30 years. Jonathan Spero, M.D, CEO of iHP, has been providing a voice of guidance to the industry as it continues to navigate the successful return of in-person events.

We asked Dr. Spero some key questions that meeting professionals need guidance on in 2022:

Q: When is time for the meetings industry go to back to normal? Is normal possible? Have we moved from pandemic to endemic?

Dr. Spero: We have not moved from the pandemic to the endemic stage yet. It may take another year or so.

As for normal....there is no going back. We will not see normal again as it pertains to health security. Why? Because COVID fundamentally changed our views of the world. Health security was always a 3rd world problem, not a 1st world problem. That changed with COVID. In addition to this, the meeting industry discovered that a pandemic even with a relatively low death rate could devastate the industry.

Yes, over a million people died in the U.S. from COVID and that is a huge number. However, the average mortality rate of COVID is turning out to be around 0.5%. We could very realistically have another pandemic with a 5% mortality rate. Just imagine a tenfold increase in mortality and what it would do to the meeting industry and the entire global economy.

Q: As a health care expert, what are the most critical learnings we have taken away from this pandemic?

Dr. Spero: We are still in a pandemic and the meeting industry will probably never get back to the "old normal.” Here are 4 main reasons:

  1. Countries, society, organizations, and individuals have fundamentally modified their perspective on health security threats.
  2. We will have more pandemics in our lifetime, perhaps even several more. In fact, we have already had two recent pandemics separated only by 11 years over the past two decades!
  3. The meeting industry is very vulnerable to any type of global infectious outbreak such as a pandemic
  4. Health Security is the only way to address the factors above.

Q: Will Health Security be like it is now in the future?

Dr. Spero: Health Security measures have relaxed over the past few months as COVID stats have improved. However, as we move to an endemic situation in the future, the degree of health security standards may vary seasonally and regionally depending on the COVID trends. In addition, new variants will create a sense of uncertainty and may abruptly change the level of health security standards at meetings.

Q: What can planners do promote attendee health and wellbeing?

Dr. Spero: Attendee well-being is directly promotional to the attendee experience. You can have a top-notch experiential design and the attendee experience can be dragged down by stress and physical complaints.

For at least the next few years, attendees will be hyper-aware of health risks with an emphasis on COVID-like illnesses. COVID is not going away, so stay vigilant with your health security measures, including convenient access to medical care and rapid, sensitive COVID testing.

Address the enormous stress your attendees are experiencing. They are in an unfamiliar setting, managing the high pressure of the meeting, and simultaneously dealing with their personal and regular professional responsibilities. I believe it is essential for planners who want to be successful to provide attendees with tools and resources to calm their minds and improve their experience in the program.

This can range from:

  • Stress and sleep management apps for their phone or hotel TV
  • Mind-enhancing nutritional options
  • Recovery strategies during the day such as access to a restoration lounge or other recovery tools during breaks that are designed to get your attendees back into the flow state/
  • And finally, health security measures that meet your attendees' expectations and potential concerns.

To learn more about InHouse Physicians and Health Security for your events, visit our website at https://www.inhousephysicians.com/onsitemedical.