ASCRS News: ASCRS Annual Meeting preview
April 2023

by Steve Speares
ASCRS Executive Director

As ASCRS members prepare to return to San Diego, California for the Annual Meeting, it is hard to fathom the monumental changes our world has experienced since our last meeting there 4 years ago.

Rolling into San Diego in May 2019, we saw a robust economy with low inflation rates, low interest rates, and healthy, thriving ophthalmic practices. Four years and one global pandemic later, our practices face staffing shortages, declining reimbursement, borderline hostile payers, and in some cases, completely different practice ownership structures. 

On the industry side, companies have been upended with disrupted clinical studies, some consolidation, increased regulation, dramatically increased cost of goods, and global supply chain disruption on a scale never experienced. Building a better mousetrap has never been more challenging.

How has ASCRS weathered the storm? As an organization, we were certainly battered and bruised by the pandemic, facing many of the same challenges both practices and industry have faced. But with challenge comes opportunity. The 2021 ASCRS Annual Meeting was one of the first medical society meetings to be held again in person worldwide. With a pared down staff and lower fixed costs by going to a virtual office setting, ASCRS demonstrated we could pull together a quality educational and networking experience under a massive cloud of uncertainty.

But celebrating survival is not a viable long-term strategy. We needed to determine what members and meeting attendees were looking for in this post-COVID-19 world. It was clear surgeons and administrators looked at attending a meeting such as the ASCRS Annual Meeting through a different lens coming out of the pandemic. Our industry partners were also clear in communicating their needs as we returned to live meetings. Many companies were still constrained with office and facility visits by their sales and clinical teams. Finally, our vendors, without whom this event does not take place, were also emerging from an existential crisis. When your business is putting together live events across the country, a global pandemic is among the most lethal of business challenges a firm can face.

One of these vendors, Freeman, has become an invaluable partner to ASCRS. As we navigated the uncertainty of a return to large gatherings, we did so with data and information from Freeman as our compass. Freeman had begun exhaustive in-depth research on attendee sentiment for everything across the meeting space. From Comic-Con to Consumer Electronics, and ASCRS to the American Society of Hematology, Freeman assessed where live events were headed and how they might change from pre-pandemic.

Prior to COVID-19, there were microtrends building in the meeting attendee mindset, but as with so many other things in our society, these trends accelerated as the pandemic waned. Gaining visibility into all medical meeting attendee sentiment has been instrumental in guiding some of the changes that you will see in San Diego.

Freeman’s surveys revealed that attendees are selectively coming back to events with far fewer concerns about health and safety and large gatherings. While attendees are returning to events, they are returning to an average of 25% fewer events than pre-pandemic. Looking forward, only the strongest events will thrive. Events that will thrive in this new environment will be those that are really tuned into the specific needs and expectations of their audiences as well as being clear about the attendee value proposition.

Across the entire spectrum of live meetings, 2022 saw a near return to pre-pandemic levels with one category exception: medical meetings. There are several hypotheses around the slower rebuild of medical meeting attendance, and many are related. In 2022 we still saw travel restrictions as an obstacle, particularly from international attendees. Almost all U.S.-based medical meetings have a significant international participation. We also saw universal approaches by medical schools to reduce staff travel during the 2022 calendar year. 

These attributes also showed up in the Freeman research. An event taking place over a weekend or adjacent to a weekend was important for all types of conferences, but among medical audiences, this attribute is “Very” or “Extremely Important.” This is a good example of a trend that existed prior to the pandemic and has since accelerated.

ASCRS has reacted to the trend this year by ending our scientific program on Monday rather than Tuesday. While there will be a slight decline in the total number of CME hours available, our focus is on high-quality scientific content that is peer-reviewed, relevant, and in a manageable number of days.

Among professionals such as physicians, the Freeman survey showed top professional priorities are to discover new products and connect with clients and colleagues. There is clear alignment between the advantages an in-person event offers and attendees’ professional priorities. These priorities have remained consistent over the past year, and all are directly enabled by an onsite event. Other priorities include building additional technical competencies and connecting with potential mentors.

This is the secret sauce of the in-person meeting. Like-minded professionals in the same field facing the same challenges are much more likely to get tangible benefit from a meeting such as the ASCRS Annual Meeting. It is at these events where surgeons can have candid conversations with complete strangers who often can turn into lifelong professional colleagues and friends.

ASCRS had already initiated programs such as Mentor Meetups and Breakfast with the Experts and continues to bolster our Young Eye Surgeon (YES) programming. This year we have added Exhibit Hall tours for first-time attendees, and building technical skills is an annual rite in the ASCRS Skills Transfer Labs.

We will have expanded activity in the ASCRS Tap Room as it serves as a networking hub for everyone. Attendees will find a morning cup of coffee waiting for them every day beginning at 8:00 a.m., and ASCRS will host a Kentucky Derby viewing party at 2:45 p.m. on Saturday in the Tap Room.

For our staff at ASCRS, the ASCRS Foundation, and ASOA, the Annual Meeting is something we work a full year preparing for. A huge part of what we deliver comes from the tireless volunteer work of our leadership and contributors. The desire to share information, ideas, and experiences with colleagues is the ultimate secret of ASCRS. As we celebrate the 49th year of its founding, we acknowledge the many pioneers and leaders who have made this Society so special. Have a great meeting!