Top Cardiology Conferences to Attend in 2026 and 2027
The cardiology conferences worth your budget in 2026 and 2027 are the ones where the people who govern cardiovascular strategy are in the room, not the ones with the largest exhibit halls. With the fall 2026 calendar underway and 2027 planning already in motion, industry teams are making two years of decisions at once. This guide covers the meetings that matter most to healthcare industry executives, what each one is built to do, and how to assemble a portfolio rather than a list.
The Best Cardiology Conferences of 2026 and 2027
THMA Cardiovascular Forum
Dates and Location: September 16–18, 2026 | Boston, MA & May 5-7, 2027 | Carlsbad, CA
Who It Is For: Healthcare technology, medical device, pharmaceutical, and services organizations whose solutions intersect with cardiovascular care delivery. Attendees typically include CEOs, Chief Growth Officers, and strategy and product leaders who need direct, substantive access to the health system executives governing cardiovascular service line strategy.
Why It Stands Out: Cardiovascular service lines are navigating a demanding set of pressures at once, including site-neutral payment reform, the integration of AI and predictive analytics into clinical workflows, the expansion of ambulatory surgical centers, and growing demand for remote patient monitoring programs that extend care beyond hospital walls. These pressures track closely with the broader trends in cardiovascular medicine reshaping how systems organize the service line. Our Cardiovascular Forum places industry leaders in the same room as Cardiovascular Service Line Leaders and heads of function from nationally recognized systems including Mayo Clinic, Yale New Haven Health, Northwell Health, Cleveland Clinic, Intermountain Health, and Cedars-Sinai, among others.
Groups are kept deliberately small. The format is a 2.5-day, retreat-style program built around member-led sessions, and a strict 1:1 health system-to-industry ratio keeps discussion substantive rather than transactional. Recent agenda themes have included service line strategy and evolution, care at the intersection of policy, practice, and economics, solving cardiovascular capacity and access through system optimization, leveraging data and analytics for strategic performance and cost management, and the AI evolution in cardiovascular care. These are closed-door conversations that surface the unfiltered strategic and operational realities shaping cardiovascular decision-making at major health systems.
Best Suited For: Pharma and biotech companies whose cardiovascular therapies require alignment with cardiovascular leadership on access, implementation, or care model fit. Also valuable to organizations in cardiovascular devices, imaging technology, care navigation software, remote monitoring platforms, and AI-enabled clinical solutions, whose commercial strategy depends on understanding the executives who govern cardiovascular program direction.
THMA Pharmacy Growth Collaborative
Dates and Location: October 14–16, 2026 | Boston, MA & November 1-3, 2027 | Orlando, FL
Who It Is For: Pharmaceutical commercial, market access, and managed care teams, along with health technology and services organizations whose solutions intersect with specialty pharmacy, infusion, formulary management, or the operational infrastructure supporting drug delivery in health systems.
Why It Stands Out: Pharmacy strategy sits at the intersection of the most consequential trends in health system decision-making right now, including the financial and operational implications of 340B reform, the Inflation Reduction Act's drug pricing provisions, the growth of ambulatory infusion as a strategic service line, and pharmacy's expanding role in value-based care.
The Pharmacy Growth Collaborative brings health system pharmacy executives and select industry leaders together in a 2.5-day retreat-style setting designed for candid, executive-level exchange. Recent agenda themes have covered strategic integration across clinical disciplines, evolving policy and financial realities, redefining pharmacy's role in value-based care, and building and partnering for the future of infusion. The program maintains a 1:1 health system-to-industry ratio and limits participation so conversations stay substantive. For cardiovascular-focused organizations, the Collaborative is particularly relevant given the overlap between cardiovascular drug management, specialty pharmacy infrastructure, and infusion programs.
Best Suited For: Pharma commercial, market access, and field medical teams who need validated insight into how pharmacy leaders approach formulary governance, 340B strategy, and specialty drug utilization. Also relevant for health technology organizations whose solutions support pharmacy operations, ambulatory infusion, or medication management in a cardiovascular context.
THMA CPE Circle
Dates and Location: October 26–28, 2026 | Scottsdale, AZ & May 17-19, 2027 | Washington, D.C.
Who It Is For: Industry leaders whose solutions require physician executive sponsorship or depend on physician leadership adoption, including organizations in clinical AI, care delivery technology, workforce solutions, and strategic consulting whose go-to-market relies on alignment with system-level Chief Physician Executives.
Why It Stands Out: Chief Physician Executives occupy a uniquely influential position in health system leadership. They sit at the intersection of clinical quality, operational performance, and organizational strategy, and their support or skepticism toward a given solution often determines whether it gains traction across a system. The CPE Circle is built specifically for this audience.
Held in a curated, retreat-style setting, the program gathers CPEs from independent and integrated health systems for member-led discussions that surface the realities of physician executive leadership. Current agenda themes include navigating the new policy landscape, strengthening CFO and CPE partnerships, digital leadership in the AI era, and systems thinking for better outcomes. The program maintains the same 1:1 health system-to-industry ratio that characterizes every THMA Executive Convening program.
Best Suited For: Organizations whose solutions depend on physician executive alignment at the system level, particularly in clinical AI, care delivery transformation, physician workforce management, or strategic advisory services. Also relevant for cardiovascular-focused organizations whose adoption cycle requires CPE sponsorship before broader health system engagement.
ACC.27 Annual Scientific Session with the World Congress of Cardiology
Dates and Location: April 10–12, 2027 | Houston, TX
Who It Is For: The full spectrum of cardiovascular medicine stakeholders, including cardiologists, interventionalists, cardiovascular surgeons, advanced practice providers, fellows in training, and the cardiology professionals who support them, alongside payers, health system administrators, and industry organizations with a cardiovascular commercial or research presence.
Why It Stands Out: ACC.27 is the flagship meeting of the American College of Cardiology and the most concentrated gathering of cardiovascular science and clinical practice in the United States. The 2027 edition carries added weight because it convenes jointly with the World Congress of Cardiology, pulling a global audience into a meeting that is normally domestically weighted. ACC.26, held in March at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, followed the pattern of recent years, with ACC.25 drawing 16,302 total attendees, including 11,780 healthcare professionals from 104 countries.
The Scientific Session is the primary venue for late-breaking clinical trial readouts, updated practice guidelines, and educational programming across heart failure, arrhythmia, dyslipidemia, acute coronary syndromes, structural heart disease, and peripheral artery disease. Formats run from large plenary sessions to specialty symposia, abstract presentations, hands-on workshops, and an exhibition spanning devices, imaging technology, digital health, and pharmaceutical therapies. Registration for ACC.27 opens in October 2026, with member access ahead of general early-bird pricing.
Best Suited For: Any organization with a cardiovascular commercial footprint should treat ACC.27 as a mandatory spring presence, and the World Congress of Cardiology pairing makes it unusually valuable for teams with international ambitions. It is essential for cardiovascular device companies, pharmaceutical and biotech organizations with CV pipelines or marketed therapies, imaging technology providers, and digital health companies whose solutions address cardiology workflows. Registration for the largest events closes earlier than most teams expect, so register once the date is confirmed rather than at the budget review.
AHA Scientific Sessions
Dates and Location: November 6–9, 2026 | Chicago, IL (McCormick Place Convention Center). November 5–8, 2027 | Boston, MA.
Who It Is For: Cardiologists, cardiovascular researchers, basic scientists, clinical trialists, academic medical center leadership, and industry organizations with a research pipeline, a clinical evidence story to advance, or solutions that resonate with academic cardiovascular leadership.
Why It Stands Out: AHA Scientific Sessions is the second major pillar of the U.S. cardiovascular calendar alongside ACC, and its emphasis on research depth and academic reach makes it a complementary rather than duplicative investment. The 2026 program at McCormick Place draws more than 12,900 total attendees, including over 10,400 healthcare professionals, and spans late-breaking trials and featured science across heart failure, arrhythmia, hypertension, stroke, preventive cardiology, and vascular disease.
Where ACC anchors the practice-changing data and guideline cycle, AHA is where foundational science and emerging clinical evidence receive their most rigorous peer scrutiny. For industry organizations, that credentialed audience supports evidence-based dialogue and thought leadership of a different character than the commercial orientation of earlier-year meetings. Closing the year in Chicago also lets industry teams reenter planning cycles with a current read on the science that will define cardiovascular strategy in 2027 and beyond.
Best Suited For: Organizations with a cardiovascular research pipeline, phase III data to position, or clinical evidence narratives that benefit from exposure to an academically oriented audience. Also valuable for organizations gaining traction in academic medical center cardiovascular programs.
TCT
Dates and Location: October 31–November 3, 2026 | San Diego, CA (San Diego Convention Center). October 18–21, 2027 | San Francisco, CA (Moscone Center).
Who It Is For: Interventional cardiologists, structural heart specialists, cardiovascular surgeons, catheterization laboratory leadership, and the device and technology organizations whose products move through those programs.
Why It Stands Out: Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics, convened by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, is the defining meeting for interventional and structural heart medicine, with a historical audience of more than 10,000 attendees from over 100 countries. If ACC and AHA are where cardiovascular science is adjudicated, TCT is where procedural innovation is demonstrated, debated, and adopted, often through live case transmissions that put technique and technology in front of the field in real time.
For commercial teams, TCT carries a distinct economic profile. It is among the most expensive cardiovascular meetings to exhibit at, and the concentration of procedural decision-makers is what justifies that cost. Structural heart remains the fastest-moving segment of cardiovascular intervention, and TCT is where the pace of that movement is set.
Best Suited For: Device manufacturers in transcatheter valve therapy, coronary and peripheral intervention, imaging guidance, and procedural support technology, along with any organization whose adoption pathway runs through interventional program leadership.
HIMSS27
Dates and Location: April 5–8, 2027 | Chicago, IL (McCormick Place Convention Center)
Who It Is For: Health system CIOs, CMIOs, chief digital officers, IT and data leaders, digital health companies, and organizations whose cardiovascular solutions depend on technology infrastructure, clinical data integration, or enterprise-level IT adoption.
Why It Stands Out: HIMSS is not a cardiology conference by design, but it is where the technology decisions that govern cardiovascular care delivery are made and negotiated. HIMSS26 drew more than 28,000 attendees from 88 countries, including the health system technology executives who determine what gets integrated into clinical workflows and enterprise infrastructure. Programming spans AI implementation, interoperability, cybersecurity, data governance, and digital transformation, and the exhibition floor is where technology organizations connect with the buyers who own those decisions.
The opportunity for cardiovascular organizations is structural. AI-enabled imaging, remote monitoring platforms, clinical decision support tools, and cardiovascular data analytics all require the infrastructure and organizational alignment that HIMSS attendees govern. The 2027 move to McCormick Place also puts HIMSS days apart from ACC.27, which makes an April double-header a realistic plan rather than a scheduling conflict.
Best Suited For: Cardiovascular technology and digital health organizations whose solutions depend on health system IT infrastructure, EHR integration, or enterprise data capabilities.
AONL 2027
Dates and Location: April 12–15, 2027 | Phoenix, AZ
Who It Is For: Organizations whose cardiovascular solutions intersect with nursing leadership, care delivery operations, workforce management, or the clinical infrastructure supporting cardiovascular service lines.
Why It Stands Out: AONL is the largest nursing leadership conference in the United States, convening more than 4,000 CNOs, nurse executives, and frontline nursing leaders. The 2026 program at McCormick Place in Chicago centered on innovation, workforce resilience, and the future of care delivery, with sessions on AI adoption, staffing optimization, and care model redesign. The 2027 program moves to Phoenix.
Nursing leadership may not be the first constituency a cardiovascular organization considers, but CNOs and nursing operations leaders govern staffing models for cardiac units and catheterization laboratories, oversee remote monitoring workflows, and hold real influence over protocol standardization and technology adoption at the operational level. As cardiovascular nursing shortages persist, the operational and technological solutions that support CV nursing teams are gaining visibility at the C-suite level.
Best Suited For: Organizations in cardiovascular workforce management, staffing technology, care delivery platforms, remote monitoring, and patient care operations, particularly those that have concentrated their presence on physician audiences and want to reach the nursing leaders who often govern operational adoption.
AHA Leadership Summit 2027
Dates and Location: July 18–20, 2027 | San Diego, CA
Who It Is For: Organizations whose cardiovascular solutions are positioned at the health system strategy level and require engagement with C-suite leadership, including CEOs, COOs, CFOs, CMOs, CNOs, and CIOs who drive enterprise decisions.
Why It Stands Out: The American Hospital Association Leadership Summit is built explicitly for health system executive strategy, which distinguishes it from the scientific and technology meetings that dominate the spring. The 2026 Summit in Denver was anchored by the theme "(Re)Designing Care Delivery and Operating Models for the Future" and structured around shorter, interactive sessions designed to generate exchange among senior leaders. The 2027 Summit moves to San Diego in July.
The attendee mix, drawn from hospitals and health systems across the country, means cardiovascular discussions here are framed in terms of service line economics, organizational redesign, and long-term capital positioning rather than clinical science. The Summit's mid-year placement bridges the spring clinical season and the fall research cycle, giving industry teams a real opportunity to engage the executive layer before annual strategic planning concludes.
Best Suited For: Organizations with cardiovascular solutions that carry an enterprise-level value proposition, including population health platforms, capital-intensive imaging or procedural technologies, AI solutions with system-wide application, and strategic advisory services.
What to Look for in a Cardiology Conference
The most useful framework for evaluating cardiology conferences is not prestige or attendance size. Those numbers tell you how visible you will be. They say little about whether the right people will be in the room, whether the setting will produce meaningful conversation, or whether the cost will translate into outcomes that matter to your organization.
Audience Composition and Seniority
A congress populated primarily by fellows, residents, and mid-level clinicians serves a different commercial purpose than one attended by cardiovascular service line chiefs, health system CMOs, or C-suite strategy executives. Before committing, examine who attends and in what capacity. Speaker lists and exhibitor rosters are useful proxies, and so is asking peers inside your own organization who they have met at a given meeting in past years.
Format and Scale
Large congresses offer breadth and brand visibility, but they compress interaction into brief exhibit hall encounters and scheduled meetings that can feel transactional. Smaller, more intentional forums with structured networking and peer-led sessions create conditions for the candid exchange that informs product development, commercial strategy, and partnership formation. The two types serve different purposes and are most valuable in combination.
Access Model
This is the criterion most teams skip, and it determines more of the outcome than the agenda does. At a scientific congress, access is something you buy, through booth space, satellite symposia, and sponsorship, and what you get is exposure to a large audience under conditions the society controls. At a closed-door convening, access is something you are granted, and what you get is a seat in a working conversation with a small number of decision-makers who are there to talk openly. Booth traffic and a two-day conversation with six service line leaders are not substitutes for one another, and a portfolio that contains only one of them is incomplete.
Topical Alignment
Site-neutral payment reform, cardiovascular AI and predictive analytics, ambulatory growth and ASC strategy, and remote patient monitoring command the most executive attention right now. Meetings whose agendas reflect those priorities generate more actionable intelligence than events whose programming has not caught up.
Relationship Building Beyond the Formal Program
Some conferences invest heavily in structured social programming, hosted dinners, and facilitated introductions that connect health system and industry leaders in settings the formal agenda never reaches. Others do not. The informal fabric of a meeting often determines whether relationships formed there become durable. Ask not only what sessions are scheduled but what the environment around those sessions is designed to produce.
Building a Cardiology Conference Strategy for 2026 and 2027
The conferences in this guide serve different purposes, and the most effective approach treats these events as complementary layers of a two-year strategy rather than competing line items. No single congress addresses every audience, relationship objective, or intelligence need a cardiovascular-focused organization carries into a planning cycle.
The question worth asking is not how many conferences you can attend, but which combination gives you the broadest coverage of the people, relationships, and intelligence your objectives require. For most cardiovascular-focused organizations, that combination includes at least one executive convening where access is curated rather than purchased, both major U.S. scientific sessions, ESC Congress if the portfolio is global, the subspecialty meeting where your specific technology is adjudicated, and one broader health system leadership event that extends your presence into the infrastructure surrounding cardiovascular care. Teams building a full-portfolio calendar can cross-reference the top U.S. healthcare conferences to see where the cardiovascular calendar overlaps with the rest of the sector.
The practical advantage of planning across 2026 and 2027 together is sequencing. April 2027 alone carries HIMSS27, ACC.27 with the World Congress of Cardiology, EHRA, AONL, ISHLT, and ESC Preventive Cardiology inside eleven days, which is both a staffing constraint and an opportunity for teams that plan early. Decide now which of those you are staffing, register early where early-bird windows close in the fall, and the rest of the year plans itself.
Explore the Cardiovascular Forum
Cardiovascular strategy is set by a small number of executives, and the conversations that shape it happen in rooms built for candor. Learn more about the THMA Cardiovascular Forum and how industry leaders connect with the health system executives governing cardiovascular service lines.