ESC Spring Summit 2020

Thank you to everyone who took part in the 2020 ESC Spring Summit.

This year’s event took place under unique circumstances and its success is a tribute to everyone who presented and participated - both at the European Heart House and off-site.

Key messages

The focus of our meeting was ‘Learning and change.’

We know that:

• Cardiovascular disease is still the world’s biggest killer (6.3 million premature deaths per year), but complacency has set in despite these frightening figures.
• There is a false perception that CVD is ‘too big to tackle’, inevitable (old age) or self-inflicted (obesity, smoking etc).
• Insufficient focus and investment are being given to tackling unmet needs in CVD.
• Testing new treatments for CVD is excessively cumbersome and costly.

The ESC is responding to these issues by:

• Working with patients to convince decision-makers that CVD should be a priority. The statistics will have more impact when supported with real-life stories.
• Addressing the burden of CVD in Europe by recording both the societal and the human cost. Decision-makers care about cost-effectiveness and impact.
• Building Europe-wide continuous patient registries (EuroHeart) and advancing the use of electronic health records and the digital infrastructure of national health systems to monitor quality of care and conduct pragmatic, low-cost RCTs. This strategy would both improve care and bring investment to CVD in Europe.
• Creating new ways of training cardiologists that better prepare them for the challenges of tomorrow. Adopting the new ESC Core Curriculum will improve patient care.

Slides and videos

2020 Photos

To view and download photos, click on this link to this online box file. You can change the view to see the photos in a larger format, by clicking on the thumbnail icon   in the box folder.