Healthcare Organizations Worldwide Turn to Mediasite Events to Create Virtual Meetings In Lieu of Cancelling

MADISON, Wis. — April 6, 2020 — In the face of mandated quarantines and social distancing, conferences and events worldwide – 500+ to date at the cost of $26 billion – are being cancelled or postponed. However, many organizations’ contingency plans include going virtual with Mediasite Events as their preferred partner, allowing the show to go on remotely.

For example, The Foundation for Research and Education in Dermatology (FRED), a healthcare education group for professionals, is working with Mediasite Events to stream weekly informational videos to dermatologists. Most recently, an expert on psoriasis discussed how to best choose and administer psoriasis medications to meet the challenges of COVID-19. According to Mediasite’s analytics, at peak viewership, 20 percent of U.S. dermatologists watched live and an additional 15% watched in the next few days on demand.

“To other organizations trying to keep communications going, I recommend thinking outside the box. The world is changing, and the technology is out there. We’ve been very pleased with Mediasite Events, and our virtual attendees have been even more pleased to have the opportunity to stay connected. It’s a lot easier than you think,” said Dr. Darrell Rigel, Clinical Professor of Dermatology at New York University Medical Center and a FRED scientific co-director.

Rigel continued: “Our viewership was pretty amazing. Everyone was in different locations around the world, and it was a seamless and impressive way to deliver content. Mediasite Events is a fantastic partner and we are already thinking about more opportunities to use streaming video in our day-to-day work when things get back to normal.”

The team of expert Mediasite Events technicians is equipped to create virtual experiences for any organization of any size right from its headquarters in Madison, Wis., without the need for travel. Over the next few weeks the team will stream more than 2,000 presentations from speakers around the world and produce 1,000 combined hours of educational content. The events team is also seeing live viewership globally increased by 20 times the average.

Another healthcare organization that went 100 percent virtual with Mediasite Events received more than 100,000 views over three days alone and featured live peer-to-peer and doctor-to-doctor chats. An upcoming event will include 300 remote presenters; and another association plans to stream 1,500 presenters and 300 hours of video content over the course of a few weeks.

“Our entire team is committed to helping healthcare organizations around the globe respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of physicians and their patients by providing continuing education videos during this dynamic crisis,” said Michael Norregaard, CEO, Sonic Foundry, the creator of Mediasite. “Our mission is to power a smarter, more connected world. It’s during times like these when the incredible power of video is especially evident.”

Sonic Foundry created specific webinars to help organizations and companies of all sizes get the information they need to build their virtual contingency plans, like How to Minimize Coronavirus’ Impact on Your Event. Mediasite Events is also offering quick-start ways to take conferences virtual, including turnkey online streaming services, a dedicated event technician to guide the process, concierge speaker services, live and/or on-demand streaming, a customized online event portal with live chat, Q&A, polling and more. Learn more at www.mediasite.com/coronavirus and download an infographic that explains how virtual events work with Mediasite at www.mediasite.com/ebooks/virtual-events-explained.

Trusted by 5,200 educational institutions, corporations, health organizations and government entities in 65 countries, the Mediasite video content management and webcasting system quickly and cost-effectively automates the capture, management, delivery and search of live and on-demand videos.