In advance of ECR 2016 taking place in Vienna, March 2 – 6, HealthCare Business News spoke with Professor Katrine Åhlström Riklund while she was attending RSNA 2015 to find out about the upcoming ECR, and about how it feels to be the last ECR president.

HCB News: How did you get involved in health care?
KAR: I decided when I was quite young to study medicine. I decided not to go into any other business. I was very curious about everything and the only way to learn about humans, how to treat them, was to go to med school.

HCB News: How did you get involved in ECR?
KAR: I decided to go into radiology in the middle of med school because I came into research that I found very interesting. My work with ECR: I was on the National Delegation of Education committee. I got asked to be chairman of the finance committee. Later, the chairman of the Congress Committee. I started in education, continued in finance, now I will be the last president of the Congress. After my time as president, the president of the society will have the main responsibility for Congress. Previously, it was a separate organization for more than 20 years.

HCB News: What are the main initiatives you’re championing as president?
KAR: Organizing the Congress is very well-structured. Our scientific program has 17 subspecialty committees. I have the opportunity to put my flavor on the Congress and I’ve focused on hybrid imaging. In the past we have had courses, and more, about hybrid imaging, and lectures about using it in all different organ areas. But we’ll have more hybrid imaging information than previous years. It’s ,happening at RSNA, too — a lot more hybrids.

HCB News: What are the key challenges facing your members today?
KAR: Financing influences the radiology work. As resources for health care diminish, so do the resources for radiology. There is also technical development happening very fast, and new information being learned with it. To have safe and upgraded imaging, we need to have upgraded equipment.

Finances are squeezed, yet the need for radiology is increasing. It is definitely a part of personalized health care. There is a great need for radiology and a need to train professionals. It is a serious challenge for radiology to be able to do what we need for patients. We work on providing that education however we can. We have managed to help people who have not managed to go to the Congress — we offer an Electronic Congress, for example. Almost all talks are available during the Congress and one month following the Congress. For ECR live we had almost 7,000 attending.

HCB News: Being at RSNA, what kind of differences have you noticed between that conference and the ECR?
KAR: RSNA is still larger, but there are a lot of similarities, with some key differences. Of the 64,000 members, 49 percent are from Europe. The rest come from around the world. RSNA is held in a larger building and there are the technical exhibitions. The struggles are similar in the U.S. and Europe.

HCB News: What countries make up the largest portions of your membership?
KAR: There is a high correlation between the size of the country and number of members. The large countries — Germany, France and Spain — have more than Denmark, Iceland and so on.

HCB News: Is it a challenge to represent members from different countries? Does health care vary greatly from country to country or is it at a level that’s manageable?
KAR: Every year we have a leadership meeting — 32 countries with 15 subspecialties committees. We find a large difference between the levels of equipment, the amount of equipment, between countries. It varies especially among our members of countries outside of Europe — we have all levels countries that don’t have a lot of resources themselves. We want to homogenize the level of training in the countries where our members are located. It’s a challenge, with so many countries and situations.

HCB News: What do you think the biggest challenges are for health care in Europe today?
KAR:The challenge for radiology is that they feel a lack of radiologists and a lack of equipment. For radiologists themselves, though, the situation is quite good. They can choose where to work, how much to work. Radiologists are also getting more tools. More biomarkers to help with more precise evaluations of examinations, for example. There’s a continuous development of CT/MR and ultrasound. Conventional development is a little slower. For the working situation, there’s much more demand, with patient process and optimizing the use of time. I feel that what we’re seeing is a high-speed push.

HCB News: How do you think health care will change in the next 10 years?
KAR:There’s a lot of ongoing discussion. Radiology is a huge area of competence. Subspecialties will have a lot of changes — abdominal oncology, gastrointestinal — lots. Imaging will be taking care of the specialists that have the best knowledge and are up to date on the research. If radiology will continue to be the face of imaging, education will need to be leading the way. It might be different developments in different subspecialties: More and more cost control, more evaluation for each image, more use of markers to create a huge amount of data.