Catherine Wall © ECCO

Definition of collaboration (noun): 1. the action of working with someone to produce something or 2. traitorous cooperation with an enemy!⁶.

Collaborative projects, such as topical reviews, are excellent opportunities to increase communication between ECCO Members and encourage clinicians and researchers from across disclipines to work together to achieve a common goal. Furthermore, collaborative working, in clinical practice and research, allows us to appreciate and utilise the specialised perspectives of our peers. Clinical collaboration (a multidisclipinary team) provides a structured setting where cross-discipline discussion of complex clinical cases can occur. A multidisclipinary Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) model of care is recommended [1] and can be effective [2, 3]; however, the structure of the team will likely vary by site depending on the aim and expertise of each IBD service [2–4].

Rikke Edelbo © Rikke Edelbo

I would like to thank the N-ECCO Committee for awarding me the N-ECCO Travel Award, which was a great financial support and helped me for my studies in Stockholm.

My focus was primarily use of the telephone in patient contacts, patient education, management of newly diagnosed IBD patients and independent nursing activities.

Ana Ibarra  © ECCO

Once again, N-ECCO is offering an outstanding range of clinical and educational opportunities for nurses attending the ECCO’20 Vienna Congress.

The programmes for each activity continue to be developed on the basis of the evaluation forms from the previous year in order to meet your needs. Thank you so much for providing your feedback, which helps us to improve all the N-ECCO Activities.

Torsten Kucharzik  © ECCO

The ECCO guidelines for the management of CD and UC are of particular interest for gastroenterologists and are amongst the highest cited articles in JCC. Updates on the CD and UC guidelines are provided every three years.

The current CD guideline update has been coordinated by Joana Torres, Gionata Fiorino, Oded Zmora and Michel Adamina and was divided into the following four chapters which were distributed among different working groups:

James Lindsay © ECCO

The 64^th ECCO Educational Workshop took place at the Hotel Pullman Aerocity on August 10, 2019, the day before a National IBD study day. The ECCO Faculty comprised Willem Bemelman and myself; however, we were fortunate also to be joined by Simon Travis, who was part of the faculty for the following day.

The local organiser was Vineet Ahuja, who was joined by 16 local faculty who moderated the sessions and acted as an expert panel to facilitate discussion as well as to present some of the cases. The workshop was a resounding success, with 250 participants, including a mixture of physicians, surgeons and trainees.

Pierre Ellul © ECCO

The 62^nd ECCO Educational Workshop was organised on June 15, 2019 in Larnaca, Cyprus.

Delegates from Cyprus attended this interactive and productive workshop. It was a memorable educational experience and provided plenty of opportunities both for networking and for further clinical case discussions over coffee and lunch breaks. In the background, the serene Mediterranean Sea further stimulated healthy interactions.

Marieke Pierik © ECCO

The World Health Organisation defined health in 1948 as a status of complete physical, psychological and social well-being. Complete well-being is, however, difficult to obtain and even harder to maintain, bearing in mind that over 50% of adults suffer from a chronic disease, people are living longer than ever and continuous environmental influences are resulting in physical or mental symptoms. Therefore, health was recently redefined as a dynamic status of subjective physical, psychological and social well-being. Health care is the maintenance or improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, injury or other physical or mental impairments in people. Patient-reported outcomes are outcomes directly reported by patients without prior interpretation by health care professionals. Compared with clinical outcomes (e.g. corticosteroid use, hospitalisation, surgery), they provide a more holistic interpretation of the effect of interventions or a condition on people by also taking into account the patient perspective and psychological and social aspects.

ClinCom Activities in Vienna 2020

Peter Bossuyt © ECCO

The mission of the Clinical Research Committee of ECCO (ClinCom) is to improve the quality of IBD clinical studies in Europe through education. With this purpose in mind, ClinCom is organising several sessions during the upcoming ECCO Congress 2020 in Vienna, targeting clinicians, nurses and industry.

On the Wednesday of the Congress, we are organising the 5th Basic ECCO: EduCational COurse for Industry. The aim of this course is to provide a state of the art introduction to IBD for both corporate and non-corporate members. In the first session we will highlight the impact of IBD for the patient and the physician. Subsequently, the natural history and overall management of IBD will be discussed, covering the causes of IBD, diagnostic and monitoring procedures, extra-intestinal manifestations and risk assessment.

ECCO-AOCC Travel Grant Report

Bei Tan © Bei Tan

This grant gave me the opportunity to increase my knowledge on the management of IBD patients in general and on the management of IBD in pregnancy in particular. At the Erasmus MC, I attended the IBD specialist/pregnancy clinics, which greatly enriched my experience. Further, I learned more about the use of IBD endoscopy, double-balloon enteroscopy, and intestinal ultrasound within the clinical care pathway, and I intend to incorporate this knowledge to some extent within our IBD centre.

ECCO Travel Award Report

Elise van Praag © Elise van Praag

Last year I was granted the ECCO Travel Award to visit St. Mark's Hospital in London. My visit took place in September of this year and was a great success. The ECCO Travel Award made it possible for me to help set up and coordinate our multicentre, international prospective cohort study which is focussing on the surgical treatment of perianal fistulas in patients with Crohn’s Disease.