american society of echocardiography news

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY NEWS

President’s MessageWHAT A YEAR!

At the halfway point of my presidency of the AmericanSociety of Echocardiography, it is a time to look back onwhat we have already accomplished but also forward towhat more can be achieved in the coming year.

It has been an amazing year. We started out with a newExecutive Board and several new senior staff members.Given the turnover, it was an opportune time to reorganizeand streamline our structure. We created 4 mission areas:Education, Quality and Practice, External Affairs, and InternalOperations, all supported by an Information TechnologyPlatform. Critically important to this reorganization was theassignment of executive board and staff member pairs tooversee each of these important mission areas. The numberof committees was reduced dramatically from 40 to 16. Wecreated several new one-year task forces and revitalized boththe Board of Directors meetings format as well as ourcommittee appointments processes. Once this reorganiza-tion was accomplished, we were ready to start on anambitious agenda in each area.

Education has always been central to the American Societyof Echocardiography and remains so. Our Annual ScientificSessions in Orlando was tremendously successful in terms ofattendance, enthusiasm, and finances. Surpassing our ex-pected attendance by nearly 15% was a major accomplish-ment given the reduction in travel in the aftermath ofSeptember 11, and it speaks volumes about the value placedon attending our meeting. The meeting highlighted specialsymposia on Sunday and Tuesday, first-ever online abstractsubmission, and sessions on vascular ultrasound and echo labnursing. ASE is also undertaking 2 new programs this fall: asonography course in Boston in October and a VascularImaging course in New York City (with the Society ofVascular Medicine and Biology). We are also now the spon-sor of a former ACC extramural program directed by MayoClinic faculty, Echo Tucson, in February 2003. Also initiatedthis year is a sonography student scholarship grant; the 5annual educational grants to local societies continue to bewell received.

In the Quality and Practice mission area, the Guidelinesand Standards Committees overhauled the processes bywhich documents are proposed, written, and approved. Inthe past year we approved 4 new ASE documents and retired2. All are posted on http://www.asecho.org and will bepublished in the Journal of the American Society of Echo-cardiography. Three new writing groups are developingdocuments on Arterial Ultrasound (with the Society ofVascular Medicine and Biology), Cardiac Chamber and MassQuantitation, and Stress Imaging in Women (with the Amer-ican Society of Nuclear Cardiology).

The Accreditation and Licensure Committee has formal-ized the criteria and applications processes for the new

credential of Fellowship of the American Society of Echocar-diography (FASE). All ASE Past Presidents have been awardedthis designation in recognition of their stature in the field andtheir service to the Society. The Research Committeeawarded $348,051 to investigators in 9 grants, 4 outcomesresearch grants, 2 fellowship grants, 2 grant-in-aids, and ourfirst ever sonographer scholarship.

The External Affairs mission area has been tremendouslybusy and recorded record membership in the IndustryRoundtable; currently 19 companies are ASE partners. Aftermany years of work, the Advocacy Committee has had atremendous success in the 65% increase in stress echoprofessional reimbursement. The committee has also initi-ated conversations with other societies involved in advocat-ing for reimbursement for vascular ultrasound. The FinanceCommittee has selected new investment advisors in MorganStanley and reallocated our endowment dollars. The PublicRelations Committee has hired a new firm, Jackson Spalding,which provided excellent media coverage for our meeting,and developed new partnerships with A Heart for Sport andWomenHeart.

In the Internal Operations area, the Sonographer Work-force Taskforce concluded its deliberations with a powerfulplank of proposals now being implemented by the appropri-ate committees. Similarly, the Board has approved the Vas-cular Strategy Taskforce’s recommendations for new strate-gies to increase our vascular ultrasound portfolio. The JuneBoard meeting also approved creation of an ASE Foundation,which will allow deductions for charitable gifts to theSociety. The ASEF will form a platform for future develop-ment programs to increase the Society’s endowment.

The Information Technology Platform Area unveiled anew Web site in March and is currently working on a130-image Web site image library linked to ASE’s coreechocardiography curriculum. Most of you are currentlyreceiving ASE’s monthly newsletters reaching more than 80%of members.

Where is ASE going from here? In the coming year we willbe busy implementing the recommendations of our

23AJournal of the American Society of EchocardiographyVolume 15 Number 8

taskforces and other committees. I see us continuing to growin membership, in the breadth and depth of our activities,and in our influence amongst physicians, sonographers,payers, and other societies. Most importantly, I see uscontinuing to fulfill our missions of quality and service

in echocardiography. It is going to be another greatyear!

Pamela S. Douglas, MDPresident

American Society of Echocardiography

24A Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography Volume 15 Number 8