Overview

ACU is now accepting workshop and poster abstracts for our 2020 Annual Conference, Connecting Advocacy, Leadership, and Service. The conference will be held at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington, DC on August 2 – 5, 2020.

The ACU Annual Conference brings together hundreds of healthcare clinicians and leaders from across the country, all with an interest in expanding access to care and improving healthcare delivery for underserved populations. The meeting is a special opportunity for clinicians, administrators, researchers, students, and advocates to network, learn, and share strategies to support our collective work.

This year’s conference theme is Connecting Advocacy, Leadership and Service. This theme focuses on importance of building advocacy and leadership into day-to-day practice whether you are a clinician, administrator, or researcher. By growing the inner advocate and leader in all of us, we can improve the delivery of care, scale promising practices, and create a path for the next generation to follow.

The conference will include 24 educational sessions, networking opportunities, a leadership pre-conference session, and more. Continuing Education credits will be available for workshop sessions. The full conference agenda, including workshop sessions, will be published in April 2020.

Workshop Proposals

Twenty-four proposals will be selected for 60- and 75-minute workshops. Sessions will be grouped into tracks focused on policy, practice, and workforce around the theme of Connecting Advocacy, Leadership, and Service. While content will cover a wide range of clinical, administrative, and advocacy topics, all proposals should include strategies and recommendations for applying leadership skills in delivering services to improve the health of underserved communities.

Proposals for the Policy Track

Workshops in this track should focus on local, state, or national efforts to improve health through advocacy or policy development. This could include completed or developing initiatives, but should document the partnerships, replicable strategies, and results of efforts that brought increased access to care or improved quality outcomes to communities.

Proposals for the Practice Track

Workshops in this track should focus on issues critical to those providing care in underserved areas, including but not limited to clinical practice guidelines, workflow changes, pilot projects, and more. Key clinical areas are primary medical care, oral health care, mental and behavioral health, vision services, pharmacy, health information technology, and crosscutting issues such as substance use disorder or disaster relief. These sessions should help educate and train frontline clinicians on care issues.

Proposals for the Workforce Track

Workshops in this track should focus on recruitment, retention, and development of the healthcare workforce. This could include any number of organizational or practice initiatives that focus on increasing the number of health professionals trained and working in underserved areas. Presenters are encouraged to consider the issues of leadership development, creating a more diverse workforce, and increasing joy-in-work in this track.

Poster Presentations

Research posters will be displayed in the main conference space for review by conference participants and a team of experts. The individual or team with the highest ranked poster will have an opportunity to work with the Editor of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved to publish an article. Research Posters should be displayed on a board measuring 4ft x 6ft.

Presenter Registration and Travel

Both workshop and poster presenters must register for the Annual Conference. All presenters are eligible for a $50 discount from their appropriate registration rate, depending on time of year and membership status. We are not able to cover any travel or hotel expense for presenters; please keep this in mind when you are submitting a proposal.

Submission FAQs

  • The deadline to submit abstracts has been extended to Friday March 6, 2020.
  • Presenters will be notified of acceptance on March 28, 2020.
  • Authors may submit abstracts for both a research poster and a workshop.
  • Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of experts and scored using the criteria below:
    • Timeliness = Addresses a current issue
    • Sustainability = Made a lasting change
    • Replicability = Can be implemented by other organizations/providers
    • Results = Solved a problem

Click here to Submit an Abstract

Click here for here a Word version of the Call for Abstracts application (to be used to review the full application or draft responses before completing the online application).

Please contact Sabrina Edgington with any inquiries about the submission process or the conference itself. We look forward to seeing you in Washington this summer!