March 2022
Last week, the European Society of Radiology organised the very first ECR Overture in an incredibly exciting online event hosted on ESR Connect. In an outstanding success, the five-day event attracted 4,028 participants who enjoyed a variety of live and pre-recorded congress sessions, presentations and activities spread over five channels.
The heart of the congress could be found on Channel 1, which hosted sessions filmed live from a state-of-the-art studio near the ESR office in Vienna. Here, some of the brightest and most accomplished figures in medical imaging met onsite for trailer sessions, roundtable discussions and one-on-one interviews. These new session formats offered a glimpse of many of the formats, topics and themes to be featured at the European Congress of Radiology 2022 and left participants in much anticipation for the onsite summer congress which will take place on July 13-17 in Vienna.
The event put a special focus on multidisciplinarity and interactivity – key pillars of ECR 2022 – as highlighted by ESR President, Prof. Regina Beets-Tan throughout the Overture. During the Opening and Closing Ceremony, as well as several trailer sessions and roundtable discussions, she also took the opportunity to introduce the concept of Building Bridges. Here, Prof. Beets-Tan presented her vision for the future of radiology, one that will see radiologists building relationships and working more closely with a wider variety of clinical, research, political and industry partners in the healthcare spectrum, as well as with patients, to improve their outcomes. This is a vision that will be explored in far greater depth at ECR 2022 where the concepts of multidisciplinarity and interactivity will guide the entire congress.
As with all ECR events, the Overture saw significant support and active engagement from industry partners. On Channel 1, c-level leaders from Bracco, Canon, Fujifilm, GE Healthcare and Guerbet gave one-to-one interviews with members from the ESR Board of Directors. In support of the concept of building bridges, company executives from Siemens Healthineers, Roche Diagnostics and the Bracco Group also visited the Overture studio in-person to take part in roundtable discussions offering valuable insights on important medical topics. In addition, Bracco sent a delegation to the onsite studio to take part in meetings, online and onsite sessions. Channels 3 and 5 also hosted a huge range of product presentations and satellite symposia from a variety of companies.
Overall, the congress had a total attendance of 4,028 participants. Of these, 3,802 were professional attendees whilst 226 were industry attendees.
The ESR is looking to continuously expand its online and onsite educational events. It is prepared to adapt quickly and with significant flexibility to external events in order to always provide experiences that consistently fit to its participants needs.
Sessions from the ECR Overture can be watched on-demand throughout 2022 with an ESR Premium Education Package.
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