President's Message

Barely a third over, summer has shaped up to be a busy one for the ATS. The Society has published a book, briefed Congressional aides, met with key NIH officers, held a fundraiser for the research program and collaborated with sister critical care associations.

Dean E. Schraufnagel, MD
ATS President

Breathing in America: Diseases, Progress, and Hope has just been published. The print copy soon will be available in exchange for a donation to the ATS Foundation. The proceeds will go entirely for research. The online version is available free at www.thoracic.org/education/breathing-in-america.pdf. The book is written for educated laypersons and tells where we are on our path to curing or controlling 23 different respiratory conditions. A main message is that supporting respiratory research is a sound investment. The National Institutes of Health and ATS leaders (Drs. Susan Shurin, James Kiley, Monica Kraft, James Crapo and others) presented advanced copies of Breathing in America to legislators at a briefing of Congressional aides on respiratory disease and research held on July 20. The book and the briefing are part of the ATS’s contribution to recognizing “2010 The Year of the Lung.” The book was also given to Congressional aides the same week during a joint briefing held by the ATS and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In June, the ATS Executive Committee was privileged to represent the ATS in meetings with the leaders of seven different NIH institutes, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, EPA and Veterans Administration to discuss matters that are important to our members. We congratulated them on the good work they are doing, but also looked at ways we could do better, especially where there are gaps in funding or in our understanding of diseases. I think most institutes look on the ATS a trusted colleague. We hope to continue to work closely with them—not only to help alert our members to funding opportunities, but also to improve research career training, managing grants and enhancing research endeavors.

Also in June, Dr. Debra Weese-Mayer and her husband, Rob, sponsored the first “Get-to-Know-Your-Foundation” reception for the Foundation of the American Thoracic Society at their home in Chicago. About 50 friends of the ATS Foundation were invited to a lovely social evening. The ATS Foundation hopes to reach out to other communities for similar personal hospitality events.
In July, the Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC) met in Chicago. In addition to the ATS, representatives from the American College of Chest Physicians, Society of Critical Care Medicine and Society of Critical Care Nurses met to discuss projects and plans related to intensive care medicine. These groups just concluded drafting a critical care research agenda that will be vetted by our societies. We are working with the Department of Health and Human Services to develop an award to be given by the Surgeon General for prevention of hospital-acquired infections.

The ATS recently held a drawing for its members to win a one-year subscription to PQRIWizard–a software product designed to simplify the process for reporting quality measures for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI). The software, which was given to 10 members for free and is available to all others at a discount, may allow ATS members to participate better in the CMS PQRI program.

The CMS recently released its proposed Medicare Part B payment rules for 2010. Included in the proposed rule are increases in reimbursement for pulmonary rehabilitation (G0424) in 2011 for care given both in the hospital and in physicians’ offices. Although the rule will not be finalized until November, it is welcomed news. For more information, see pages 118-120 of the Web site: www.ofr.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2010-16448_PI.pdf.

Please check out the latest issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Editor Dr. Iasha Sznajder has new features for clinicians, including the concise clinical reviews series, in which experts in the fields of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine review the literature on clinical topics.