Given the short time frame to fulfil the project objectives, the month of December of 2019 was filled with intensive preparations. By the end of the month, over 70% of members of the four boards were confirmed. The conference website went online in the second half of January together with a marketing campaign. By the end of January, enough invited and keynote lecturers were confirmed to complete the draft folder of the conference programme.
The abstract application deadline was February 20th, 2020. The final version of the conference proceedings had more than 190 abstracts. The original conference date, April 6th to 7th, 2020, began to seem ever more unlikely because of the COVID 19 pandemic as well as a catastrophic 5.4 magnitude earthquake that hit the city of Zagreb on March 22nd, 2020. It was decided that the BFHA 2020 Conference will be held online from June 3rd to June 5th, 2020.
In April templates for the e-posters were sent and the special edition of Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ) was announced. Chairpersons and moderators for the BFHA 2020 Conference were selected and contacted. Registrations also received an increase in numbers and passed 615, more than twice the original number. The Cisco WebX platform was chosen to host the e-conference, and the presentations were recorded in advance.
The Conference Proceedings in the form of a digital edition of the Liječnički vjesnik were published on the conference website as well as all the posters submitted to the BFHA 2020 Conference.
Every day of the conference was split into one keynote speaker session followed by five topical sessions. Each keynote speakers' session had two to four speakers with presentations lasting for 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute discussion. The five thematic sessions consisted of an invited lecture (15 minutes) and three oral presentations (8 minutes) followed by a 20-minute discussion.
A poster session was concluded with awards for the best poster in each of the main three topics of the BFHA 2020 Conference and two best student posters. The third and final day of the BFHA 2020 Conference ended with an over hour-long live discussion concerning the BFHA 2020 Recommendations and conference Policy Paper. The Recommendations were published on June 30th, 2020, and later expanded into Policy Paper which was published at the conference website and online edition of Liječnički vjesnik in July.
During the three days of the BFHA 2020 Conference, the following number of presentations was held: 13 opening remarks, 8 keynote lectures, 16 invited lectures, and 48 oral presentations with more than 100 posters being shown on the conference website and stream together with Introductory speeches from representatives of the EU, the Croatian government, the University of Zagreb, the School of Medicine and the WHO.
According to an anonymous online evaluation, the overall mark of the BFHA 2020 Conference was 'very good’/’excellent'.
