- Conferences, workshops, and other live training opportunities for healthcare professionals often involve barriers to entry, whether geographical, financial, time and resource related. These barriers can ultimately foster inequalities in care.
- NCD Academy equips healthcare providers with high quality continuing education available anytime, anywhere, and free of charge on skills to mitigate today's leading causes of death and disability, with content developed through an interdisciplinary partnership network of advocacy organizations and medical societies led by the American College of Cardiology (ACC).
- Courses are now available across Europe in Greece, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Serbia and Poland; will also be available over the course of next months in Bulgaria Croatia, Romania and Slovenia.
Athens, November 2, 2023 – The Regional Conference of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), "ACC Middle East & Eastern Mediterranean 2023", organized in collaboration with the Hellenic Cardiology Society and held for the first time in Europe, will take place in Greece, Athens, during November 3-5, 2023.
During the scientific event, a landmark for Cardiology and Cardiovascular medicine, the ACC will present its partnership project with Viatris in the form of NCD Academy – a free, web-based, CME-accredited and globally accessible educational platform for healthcare providers to improve their knowledge on prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases.
In the context of health systems facing a massive burden worsened only by COVID-19 pandemic, NCD Academy – a partnership between the American College of Cardiology, the World Heart Federation and NCD Alliance with Viatris as founding sponsor - provides eLearning that emulates the experience of intensive face-to-face training with leading experts through interactive knowledge application and practice in the form of patient cases and games such as trivia.
“With ACC’s Middle East regional conference expanding to Mediterranean Europe this year, it’s an ideal setting to be strategic on how to make the best use of NCD Academy for healthcare professionals training”, said Lobna Salem, Head of Medical Affairs, Developed Markets at Viatris. “At Viatris, one of our global sustainability goals is to impact 100 million patients via healthcare professionals education and outreach regarding prevention, diagnosis and treatment options for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, respiratory disease, mental health and other important chronic conditions to improve outcomes through the NCD Academy by the end of 2025. Making NCD Academy available in countries facing massive pressure on health systems is particularly meaningful, and supports our priority of increasing access to healthcare”, she continued.
“The ACC intends for this unique roundtable event to foster a holistic conversation on health capacity development and the variety of solutions that can be deployed in tandem to build a more productive, accessible, and fulfilled health workforce throughout the European continent“, said Athena Poppas, Past President American College of Cardiology (ACC). “In this context, the NCD Academy can make a difference for the healthcare workforce globally and is a great example of what it is accomplished working together with multisectoral partnership, as well as the value of digitally enabled programs”, she continued.
About NCD Academy and Non-Communicable Diseases
As of end 2022, more than 19,000 healthcare professionals have an NCD Academy account, an increase of nearly 6,000 users last year compared to the previous. It is estimated that these new users will positively impact approximately 15.1 million patients annually.
Non communicable diseases cause approximately 41 million deaths each year worldwide and include a range of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer, mental health illnesses and cardiovascular diseases.
The NCD Academy platform includes Courses covering the “Big 5” NCDs that contribute most to global mortality and morbidity: CVD, Cancer, Chronic Respiratory Diseases, Diabetes, and Mental Health, and aim to foster individualized care in patients amid the increasing prevalence of multimorbidity. Other courses also offer resources related to advancing Health Equity, and the importance of advocacy.
The courses are developed by leading global scientific societies and are translated in many languages, ensuring relevant and quality content. The course partners, including for example the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the World Psychiatric Association and the Forum of International Respiratory Societies help to expand its network and support implementation activities to ensure optimal uptake across the globe.
In 2022, the NCD Academy was expanded in Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Egypt, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia and South Africa; recently, courses in Hungarian and Serbian are available. Courses are in the process of being translated to Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Slovenian. Once these translations are complete, over the course of next months, over half of the 23 languages represented on the NCD Academy platform will be of European origin.
About Viatris
Viatris Inc. (NASDAQ: VTRS) is a global healthcare company uniquely positioned to bridge the traditional divide between generics and brands, combining the best of both to more holistically address healthcare needs globally. With a mission to empower people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life, we provide access at scale. In 2022 alone, we supplied high-quality medicines to approximately 1 billion patients around the world. With our exceptionally extensive and diverse portfolio of medicines, a one-of-a-kind global supply chain designed to reach more people when and where they need them, and the scientific expertise to address some of the world's most enduring health challenges, access takes on deep meaning at Viatris. We have the ability to touch all of life's moments, from birth to end of life, acute conditions to chronic diseases. We are headquartered in the U.S., with global centers
in Pittsburgh, Shanghai and Hyderabad, India. Learn more at viatris.com and investor.viatris.com, and connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Resources for European media are also available at Viatris EU Newsroom.
