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It’s no secret that we’re on the verge of another recession. The only debate is if it has already arrived or if it will arrive in the next six months. While most of the headlines right now are about tech layoffs and a lack of venture capital for startups, the recession will impact every industry, including healthcare.

Attending conferences every year can be overwhelming, exhausting and maybe even nerve-wrecking; but they don’t have to be! Nextech’s 5th Annual User Conference, EDGE, is right around the corner and we want to provide you with helpful tips to ensure you are fully optimizing your conference experience.

While we are already well into 2017, the health care industry is still being affected by trends and events from last year. These trends from 2016 could pose new challenges for practices, but could also create revenue and patient-volume growth opportunities in 2017 and in the future.

If you’ve been paying attention to current events these days, you’re likely already aware of the Zika virus outbreak that’s hitting the Americas. Cases of Zika are now beginning to pop up in North America, which has prompted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to order their Emergency Operations Center to assume a Level 1 activation status (its highest level), in preparation for a possible nationwide outbreak in the United States. A Level 1 activation places CDC personnel into overdrive, allowing for 24/7 response capabilities. Just to give you an idea of how serious this is, the CDC has only ordered Level 1 activations three times in their 70-year history—after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, during the H1N1 outbreak of 2009, and during the 2014 Ebola epidemic. Of course, the World Health Organization (WHO) already declared the Zika virus a “global health emergency” back on Feb. 1, 2016.