ACR 2019 Call for Abstracts

QUALIFICATIONS: The abstract submission site is open to all trainees, young physicians, radiologists, medical physicists, radiation oncologists, and representatives from other professions related to the subject categories listed below.

DEADLINE: Abstract submission deadline will be 5pm ET on Friday, December 14.

ABSTRACT TYPE: Accepted abstracts will be presented in an ePoster format (electronic PowerPoint format). No printed poster boards will be on display.

SUBMISSIONS:

• Abstracts must be submitted online through the abstract submission site.
• Abstract submissions with an “Incomplete” status cannot be processed.
• Abstracts must be based on original completed research projects not previously published or presented at other meetings. Promissory research projects and case reports will not be considered.
  Abstracts must be formatted and organized into the following four sections: Purpose, Methods/Materials, Results, and Conclusions.
• Abstract submissions are limited to 2,200 characters (total of all sections including Purpose, Materials/Methods, Results, and Conclusions), 1 image, and 1 table. Spaces count toward character limit.
• Abstracts must be balanced and contain no commercial promotional content. Brand names of pharmaceuticals and trade names of medical devices cannot be used in the title or body of the abstract.
• An abstract may only be submitted once. Duplicate abstracts (reporting the same data) that are submitted under a different title or author will not be considered.
• Proofread abstracts carefully to avoid errors before they are submitted. ACR is not authorized to make changes to a submission. This includes typographical errors to the abstract title or text, and additions or deletions of author names. Your abstract, if selected, will be published exactly as submitted.  

NOTIFICATIONS: Disposition notifications will be sent to the first author via email on Friday, January 25.

MODIFICATIONS: Submitters may return to the online system to edit abstracts, add co-authors, revise information, correct typographical errors, tables, graphics, or delete a submission at any time before the submission deadline. The site will close at 5pm ET on Friday, December 14, and no additional revisions will be accepted.

WITHDRAWALS: The deadline to withdraw an accepted abstract is Monday, April 1. A written request must be sent to Kathy Martin by Monday, April 1. After this date, withdrawals are still accepted but abstracts may still appear in annual meeting materials. Withdrawal of an accepted abstract after this date or failure to present an accepted abstract may result in the first author and all co-authors’ disqualification from presenting an abstract at the next ACR Annual Meeting.

REGISTRATION AND TRAVEL: Attendance is not mandatory. However, if abstract authors register, they are responsible for their registration and travel arrangements. ACR does not provide honorarium or reimbursement of travel expenses.

Advocacy, Economics, and Health Policy
Advocacy abstracts should pertain to federal and state issues that relate to imaging issues. These abstracts are NOT intended to target patient related advocacy efforts regarding patient rights protection.

Economics and Health Policy abstracts focus on areas for radiology and radiation oncology services related to coverage of services, reporting/coding and reimbursement for new, revised, and existing services, policy and payment issues related to third party payers, tracking Medicaid managed care organizations, and new payment models.

Training and Education
Training and Education abstracts should introduce aspects of education theory that improve the way we educate trainees and colleagues. Abstracts focused on clinical radiology (ie. more traditional abstracts seen at other national radiology meetings) will not be considered for this meeting.

Informatics Innovations
Informatics Innovations abstracts should pertain to one or more of the following areas: electronic medical records (EMRs), PACS, interoperability, CAD, speech-recognition software, enterprise imaging, radiology business analytics, and social media.

Leadership
Leadership abstracts may target any of the following areas

1. Strategic initiatives that leaders can use to transition to value-based care
2. Operational metrics and processes for optimizing organizational effectiveness
3. Economic drivers catalyzing changes in health care practice
4. Negotiation principles and applications
5. Leadership development
6. Developing a culture of quality and safety
7. Medical-legal/-ethical dilemmas
   

Quality and Safety
Quality and Safety abstracts should pertain to one or more of the following areas:

1. Patient safety (including radiation dose optimization)
2. MRI safety
3. Contrast media use
4. Diagnostic or breast imaging accreditation and centers of excellence programs
5. Implementation of evidence-based radiology guidelines, practice parameters, technical standards, Appropriateness Criteria, or Appropriate Use Criteria
6. Quality management in radiology practice (including quality improvement tools and methods such as use of data registries and structured reporting)
7. Building a quality infrastructure

The first author must:

• Obtain approval in advance from all co-authors before placing their names on the abstract. Submission of an abstract denotes that co-authors as well as authors have read the abstract, take responsibility for its content, and approve that their names appear on the abstract. Failure to obtain approval from all authors will result in immediate rejection of the abstract.
• Limit the number of authors to 10.
• Include the affiliation for every author. Spell out the institutions in their entirety and capitalize the first letter of each proper name. Examples to follow: Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
• Include a concise statement of the research under the ‘purpose’ tab and the overall objectives for the abstract. Define all concepts and abbreviations at first use.
• Describe experimental methods briefly (including relevant numbers of patients).
• Ensure that patient confidentiality is protected according to HIPAA regulations.
• Describe specific findings and analysis of data. Promises such as “to be completed” will not be considered.
• Include specific conclusions, with supporting statistical analyses when appropriate. Concluding statements such as “the results will be discussed” will not be considered.
• Refrain from submitting multiple abstracts on overlapping facets of the same project unless each abstract has important, novel information and clearly stands on its own. Repetitive abstracts will be rejected.
• Remove brand names from the abstract title or body. Use generic terms if referencing a medical device and/or pharmaceutical product.
• Refrain from submitting an abstract that has been presented at other meetings. Abstracts that have been previously presented, but include updated information with significant new implications will be considered.
• Resolve any issues relating to patent matters before submitting the abstract.
• Agree to the ACR embargo and copyright policies.
• Disclose any financial interest in accordance with ACR’s disclosure of financial relationships policy. List any financial interests, assistance, or relationships with companies, supporters, or commercial products that are related to the research (for example, research support, grants, sponsors, stockholder, etc.). Each co-author must complete his/her own financial disclosure and attestation form. NOTE: ACR will not provide continuing medical education credit for ePosters; however, financial disclosures are still required.
• Ensure that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to be the first author.
• Inform all co-authors of the status of the submitted abstract. The first author will receive all notifications and communications related to the accepted abstract(s), and is responsible for informing all co-authors of acceptance at the meeting.

• In accordance with HIPAA regulations, patient confidentiality must be protected. Names, dates of scans, birth dates, ages, medical record numbers, zip codes, and identities must not be included in the abstract or on images and graphs.
• The maximum character limit of the abstract is 2,200 including spaces; spaces do count towards the character limit
• Use simple fonts
• Italics, underline, bold, ^superscript and _subscript formatting, Greek characters (both upper and lowercase), scientific characters, charts, tables, and graphs are accepted in the body of the abstract only. Do not use these in the title of the abstract.
• The abstract may contain one small image and one graph. A minimum resolution of 500 dpi and format of tiff, jpg, or esp is required.
• A maximum of ten authors may be listed on each abstract. Authorship credit should only be given if all three of the following criteria are met. Each author must have made substantial contributions to:
  
  • conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data, and
  • drafting the abstract or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and
  • final approval of the version to be submitted/published.
• You may type or copy and paste the text of your abstract from a word processing document or a clipboard directly into the online abstract box.
• All required fields must be complete or the submission will be marked incomplete. Abstract submissions with an “incomplete” status cannot be processed.
• Do not send multiple submissions of the same abstract. Duplicate abstracts will be rejected. Be sure to combine all new information into one abstract.
• Always keep an original copy of your submitted abstract.
• Always proofread your abstract. Accepted abstracts will be published exactly as submitted.
• ePosters must give a balanced view of therapeutic options. Brand names of pharmaceuticals and trade names of medical devices cannot be used in the title or body of the abstract. ACR reserves the right to replace proprietary names with generic names.
• Institution names should not be included in the title or body of the abstract in order to keep the review process blind, fair and objective. Alternative language that may be used is "at an institution", or "A multi-institution" study, etc. This does not apply to cooperative research group names such as RTOG, SWOG, ECOG, ect.

ACR will give up to five Gold Merit Awards. The Gold Merit Abstract Awards are presented to the highest scored abstract in each category. Abstract scores are based on quality of the research and content, the accuracy of the research/content and interpretations, and relevance to the meeting.

The top scoring abstract in each of the five pathways will receive a $400 travel award. The recipient must complete a W-9 tax form and must be present to claim the award in person.

All accepted abstracts are considered.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) is accredited by the Accreditation Council on Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to sponsor continuing medical education activities for physicians.

The ACR Financial Disclosure Policy: In compliance with ACCME requirements and guidelines, the ACR has developed a policy for review and disclosure of financial interests, and a method of resolution if a conflict does exist. The ACR maintains a tradition of scientific integrity and objectivity in its educational activities. In order to preserve this integrity and objectivity, all individuals participating as planners, presenters, authors, moderators and evaluators in an ACR educational activity or an activity jointly sponsored by the ACR must appropriately disclose any financial relationship with a commercial organization that may have an interest in the content of the educational activity.

All first and co-authors will be required to complete a disclosure form and attest that the statements in the form are accurate and the abstract complies with the U.S. Government’s Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy and data security standards. Authors must attest that the abstract will adhere to all ACCME Criteria and Standards for Commercial Support.

ACR Resolution Mechanism: The ACCME requires all accredited providers of CME to have a mechanism in place for identifying and resolving potential financial interests prior to the educational offering. The ACCME considers financial relationships to create actual conflicts of interest “when individuals have both a financial relationship with a commercial interest and the opportunity to affect the content of CME about the products or services of that commercial interest.” A commercial interest is defined as any entity producing, marketing, re-selling, or distributing health care goods or services consumed by, or used on, patients.

ACR requires that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to attend and answer attendee questions.

ACR requires that the first author of an abstract does NOT have a financial interest in the scientific content of the abstract. If the first author has a conflict of interest related to the content, choose a co-author who does not have a relationship to the commercial interests related to the content to attend and answer attendee questions:

• Attest that there are no third-party ownership or copyright restrictions;
• Give ACR permission to record, reproduce, and publish the abstract and findings in the meeting program, on the ACR website, in any additional proceedings related to the meeting, and in ACR online and print publications; and
• Transfer copyright ownership of the accepted abstract to ACR. All authors of accepted abstracts are automatically issued a license to allow the reuse of their abstract at the time they transfer copyright ownership of their abstract to ACR. Authors need not contact the ACR to request permission to repurpose or build upon the work published in their abstract. This right only applies to abstract authors and does not preclude the need for permissions for non-authors to republish abstracts.

Abstract author(s) agrees to bear full responsibility for any claims, damages or losses that may occur because of any acts or omissions made during his or her presentation. ACR will have no liability for those acts or omissions. However, Abstract Author(s) will not have any such responsibility if ACR is proven to be solely negligent.

All accepted abstracts submitted to the ACR Annual Meeting are embargoed until the first day of the meeting, unless otherwise noted by ACR. The first author is responsible for conveying this information to all co-authors. For questions regarding the embargo policy, please contact Kathy Martin, Senior Program Manager, ACR Annual Meeting.

CR requires that the content of all education presentations submitted to ACR meetings be in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations implementing this act. To comply with HIPAA regulations, patient confidentiality must be maintained in all education presentations, including ePoster sessions.

Members of the Program Committee and education staff will monitor presentations to identify ways to improve overall presentation quality and HIPAA compliance throughout the meeting.

Patient confidentiality must be protected. Names, dates of scans, birth dates, age, zip codes, medical record numbers, and identities must not be included on slides, images, or posters that are submitted to ACR. A complete list of identifiers can be found under the "Safe Harbor method” on the Health and Human Services website.