FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Angie Porter
919-297-7152
APorter@ASEcho.org

DURHAM, NC, April 8, 2024)—The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) is pleased to recognize 17 Industry Roundtable (IRT) Partners for 2024.

This represents a significant milestone and the largest number of IRT Partners in the program’s decades-long history. The ASE IRT program is a partnership between industry, practitioners, and scientists with the shared objectives of improving patient care through improving the quality of cardiovascular ultrasound imaging. These partnerships also help shape and impact the future of the field toward outcomes-driven innovations.

2024 ASE IRT Partners include:

• Abbott
• Bracco
• Bristol Myers Squibb
• Cytokinetics
• Edwards Lifesciences
• Fujifilm Healthcare Americas Corp. (Cardiovascular Ultrasound)
• Fujifilm Healthcare Americas Corp. (Medical Informatics)
• GE HealthCare (Cardiovascular Ultrasound)
• GE HealthCare (Pharmaceutical Diagnostics)
• Intel
• JenaValve
• Lantheus
• Pfizer
• Philips Healthcare
• Siemens Healthineers
• Ultromics
• Visura Technologies

G. Burkhard Mackensen, MD, PhD, FASE, Chair of the ASE Industry Relations Committee said, “The ASE Industry Roundtable Partners create invaluable alliances which foster the development of informed cardiovascular professionals, cutting-edge technology and products, standardized procedures, and more favorable legislative environments. Our partners fuel ASE’s programmatic efforts in advancing strategic initiatives within echocardiography, encompassing areas such as quality, standardization, automation, research, outreach, and beyond.”

For more information on ASE’s IRT Program visit ASEcho.org/IRT.

The American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Practice Information (PPI) Survey is nearing completion (June 30), and we urgently need all selected physicians to actively engage in this effort.

Today an email was sent to 500 practices for the first time from ppisurvey@mathematica-mpr.com to join the survey. Mathematica, a well-regarded consulting firm, is helping the AMA run this survey. Your practice may receive an email and a USPS mail packet from Mathematica that contains a link to the survey as well as supporting information. We urge you to speak with your practice management colleagues to determine if they have received these communications and ask them to complete this important survey.

The intent of the survey, which has been endorsed by over 170 medical societies and other healthcare associations, is to collect updated and accurate data on practice costs which are key element of physician payment. These data have not been updated since last collected over 15 years ago. It is critically important to update these data to ensure accurate payment.

In the coming weeks or months, you may be asked to complete this two-minute survey. Help us help YOU to update Medicare physician payment.

The CASE editorial team is pleased to announce that the Special Issue on Adult Congenital Heart Disease, with current ASE President, and pediatric cardiologist, Benjamin W. Eidem, MD, FASE, as guest editor is available today! Vincent L. Sorrell, MD, FASE, CASE Editor-in-Chief, notes that, “Congenital heart disease is the most common birth defect diagnosed in nearly 1% of all U.S. births. Two-thirds of this population are now over 18 years old due to advances in medical and surgical care. In fact, every year there are nearly 20,000 new ACHD patients. I think you will agree when you read this collection of reports that there are many examples provided in one place to help educate your colleagues, sonographers, trainees, and students wherever you work. We are so thankful for the many authors who took the time to provide their case reports for us to learn from.”

This Special Issue provides over 30 high-quality cases to explore on common and uncommon imaging findings that encompass typical and atypical presentations of patients encountered in an adult echocardiography lab.  The cases include descriptions of a wide range of congenital heart diseases, provide steps in image acquisition unique to the pathology and repair, describe the incremental role for collaborative multimodality imaging, and educate through patient examples using fascinating figures and videos you will undoubtedly keep on hand for future reference.

CASE is ASE’s open access journal allowing you to share these reports with colleagues across the globe.

February is American Heart Month and ASE has released two new guidelines:

• Guidelines for Performing a Comprehensive Pediatric Transthoracic Echocardiogram: Recommendations From the American Society of Echocardiography
• Guidelines and Recommendations for Targeted Neonatal Echocardiography and Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: An Update from the American Society of Echocardiography

Read the two new guidelines on our Guidelines web page.

We extend our congratulations to ASE and ASEF Treasurer Cynthia Taub, MD, MBA for being named Edward C. Reifenstein Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Upstate Medical University!

View the press release from Upstate Medical University here.

On March 14 at 8 PM ET, interact with your colleagues as ASE’s Twitter Journal Club reviews the newest guideline, Recommendations for Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Children: A Report from the American Society of Echocardiography

Register for the Twitter Journal Club here!

CME/MOC Information:

• 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ (Pending Approval)

Moderators:

• Kelly Boegel, ACS, RCCS, RCS, FASE (@boegel_kelly)
• Kanwal M Farooqi, MD (@Kfarooqi)
• Enrique Garcia-Sayan, MD, FACC, FASE (@EGarciaSayan)

Guest Authors:

• Jimmy C. Lu, MD, FASE (@Jimmy_C_Lu)
• Neha Soni-Patel, MEd, RCCS, RDCS, FASE (@nehasonipatel)

Learning Objectives:

1. Define the appropriate uses and indications for cardiac POCUS in pediatric patients.
2. Specify the technical considerations and equipment required to perform cardiac POCUS in children.
3. Outline the imaging views which should be included in a POCUS study.
4. Describe the minimum requirements for training and quality assurance to sustain a pediatric cardiac POCUS program.

Follow @ASE360 and use the hashtag, #ASEchoJC for all tweets.

Cardiac point-of-care ultrasound has the potential to improve patient care, but its application to children requires consideration of anatomic and physiologic differences from adult populations, and corresponding technical aspects of performance. This new guideline, Recommendations for Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Children, is the product of an American Society of Echocardiography task force composed of representatives from pediatric cardiology, pediatric critical care medicine, pediatric emergency medicine, pediatric anesthesiology, and others, assembled to provide expert guidance.

This diverse group aimed to identify common considerations across disciplines to guide evolution of indications, and to identify common requirements and infrastructure necessary for optimal performance, training, and quality assurance in the practice of cardiac point-of-care ultrasound in children. The recommendations presented are intended to facilitate collaboration among subspecialties and with pediatric echocardiography laboratories by identifying key considerations regarding (1) indications, (2) imaging recommendations, (3) training and competency assessment, and (4) quality assurance. Read more here.

The role of echocardiography in detection and evaluation of valvular heart disease is a focus topic of the January 2023 JASE, now online. This issue also includes ASE’s newest guideline, “Recommendations for the Use of Echocardiography in the Evaluation of Rheumatic Heart Disease,” from Pandian et al.

Patricia A. Pellikka, MD, FASE, who begins her tenure as JASE Editor-in-Chief with this first issue of 2023, said that she chose the focus topic to coincide with the publication of the guideline, putting out a call for papers last summer. Read Dr. Pellikka’s first Editor’s page, which offers insights on several of the clinical investigations. Editorials, brief research communications, and correspondence in this issue also provide further insights on echocardiography in valvular heart disease. The guideline is the January CME article.

The President’s Message from Stephen H. Little, MD, FASE, shares the history of ASE’s Leadership Academy, which was developed by the Governance Committee “to provide a way to engage our early and mid-career members to develop their leadership skills.” If you missed the prior announcement of those who were recently accepted into the third cohort of the LA, meet them in his message! The continuing education and meeting calendar outlines a multitude of learning options near and far.

ASE is partnering with Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association (PCNA) to present education on topics that touch echocardiographers and the cardiovascular nursing team. The goal of this partnership is to share learning, perspectives, and communicate the challenges and opportunities around patient identification and management that impact both communities.

Sharing expertise across team members can provide each member with a deeper understanding of issues in various cardiovascular diseases. ASE is committed to working across the field of cardiovascular health to impact better patient care. We hope that by identifying synergies with groups like PCNA that have similar challenges and a different perspective, we can bridge gaps and build understandings for all practitioners.

LEARN MORE

ASE would like to thank Congress for passage of the Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy (CAROL) Act (H.R. 1193/S. 1133). ASE was pleased to support this bipartisan legislation. Senators McConnell and Sinema introduced the Senate companion legislation to Congressman Barr’s House legislation, which will help heart patients through expanded research, education, and investments into valvular heart disease.

According to the CDC, valvular heart disease affects 2.5% of the U.S. population. As many as 11 million Americans are living with heart valve disease and, each year, five million additional Americans are diagnosed with it. The CAROL Act pledges the necessary investments in research and prevention to aid the millions of American lives affected by this disease. We thank leaders in the House and Senate for their partnership in getting this bill done.