Minutes NASCOLA Executive Committee Conference Call ...

Minutes
NASCOLA Executive Committee
Conference Call – September 8, 2006
The meeting was called to order by Dr. Schmaier at 4:05 pm EDT. The meeting took place by
conference call. The agenda had previously been circulated by e-mail.
1. Roll call and Welcome
Those in attendance:
Dr Alvin Schmaier (President)
Dr Cathy Hayward (MAL)
Dr Ellinor Peerschke (Vice-President)
Ms Elizabeth Plumhoff (MAL)
Dr William Nichols (Past-President)
Dr Elizabeth Van Cott (Secretary)
Dr Richard Marlar (QA Director)
Absent:
Dr John Francis (Treasurer)
Dr James Zehnder (MAL)
Case Western Reserve University
Hamilton Health Sciences, McMaster University
NY Presbyterian/Cornell Medical Center
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic (ex officio)
Massachusetts General Hospital
Oklahoma City VA (ex officio)
Florida Hospital
Stanford University
2. Minutes
Minutes from the 6/1/06 Executive Committee conference call were approved.
3. Proficiency Testing/External Quality Assessment (PT/EQA) Program for 2006
Ms. Plumhoff reported that, in 2006 NASCOLA had 7 new institutional members with a total of
59, 4 new associate members with a total of 14, and 2 individual members, in addition to 2
honorary lifetime members. Invoices have all been paid by the membership (~$88,000). There
were no active recruitment efforts in 2006 due to reorganization needed during the interim time
period without an Executive Secretary. In her role as the new Executive Secretary, Ms.
Plumhoff receives and responds to new requests for information every week.
4. Budget
Detailed discussion of the budget was deferred due to the absence of the Treasurer, Dr.
Francis.
5. Website Update
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Ms. Plumhoff notes that the website is up-to-date regarding Associate Members. Dr.
Hayward noted that ~48 members had responded to the Strategic Planning survey.
Regarding input on the website from this initiative, only one member indicated an ability
to pay membership fees on-line with a credit card. The website group has been active
with postings and bulletin items and is interested in further improving links and
functionalities. This year, items have been posted rapidly once preparation is completed
for postings and submission. ACTION ITEM: Executive Committee members should
send Ms. Plumhoff any meetings that should be posted on the website calendar (eg.
ASH, ECAT meetings).
6. Nominations of Officers for 2007-2009
Nominations have been requested from the membership in the newsletter and by other
means; to date, none have been received apart from members of the executive. The
nominations for officers for this year’s ballots were agreed upon as follows: President
Dr. Hayward, Vice-President Dr. Van Cott, Secretary Dr. Dorothy Adcock, Treasurer Dr.
Zehnder, and members-at large Donna Castellone and Drs. Wayne Chandler, Kandice
Kottke-Marchant, and Jonathan Miller. All of the named candidates have agreed to their
nomination to run in the election. ACTION ITEM: Dr. Schmaier will email Ms. Plumhoff
the names for nomination, and she will request a biographical sketch from each
candidate. She will also generate a ballot on the survey monkey, in collaboration with
Karen Moffat and Dr. Hayward. The group discussed the process for maintaining vote
information confidential and secure during the election. Password access to the
NASCOLA survey monkey service will be changed just before the election, for access by
Beth Plumhoff and Karen Moffat only until the process is completed.
7. Pricing for 2007 ECAT Proficiency Test Survey and NASCOLA Membership
Prices for 2007 have been received from Piet Meijer. The pricing continues to represent
a 20-25% discount off the ECAT list price. The dollar has continued to decline relative to
the Euro. Prices for 2007 were agreed upon as follows, based on the need to cover
ECAT fees without knowing in advance what the Euro exchange rate will be: ECAT fee
$70 (vs $65 last year and vs $62 ECAT 2007 fee), NASCOLA dues $170 (vs $150 last
year), NASCOLA Associate Membership $1400 (vs. 1250 last year). The ECAT
membership fee per institution is in addition to the NASCOLA dues. Dr. Hayward
indicated that these price increases were in line with what the membership had indicated
they would be comfortable with in the Strategic Planning initiative.
Module Price 2006 ECAT fee 2007 Proposed 2007 price
Thrombophilia 415 407 450
D-dimer 105 103 115
Other modules 110 109 121
A thrombin generation test is offered by ECAT for 2007. ACTION ITEMS: Ms. Plumhoff
will send an email to the membership inquiring about their interest in a proficiency test
for thrombin generation. Goal is to have recruitment letters out by mid-November, if not
October, 2006. Dr. Schmaier will request an invoice from ECAT in order to ascertain
the exact fees that ECAT will charge NASCOLA. The survey monkey service will be
used to collect the membership’s selections, update any contact information, and
generate a report containing the collected information for use by the Executive
Secretary, the Treasurer, and the Program Director.
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8. CAP and NASCOLA joint meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 2006
Dr. Schmaier attended the meeting representing NASCOLA and Dr. Van Cott was in
attendance as a CAP Coagulation Resource Committee member. Minutes were
distributed to the Executive Committee prior to the conference call. Possible ideas for
collaboration were discussed. ACTION ITEM: Drs. Schmaier, Nichols, and Hayward
will participate in a conference call with CAP, preceded by a conference call discussion
amongst our 3 participants (Dr. Nichols to arrange). Other attendees of the conference
call will be Dr. Mark Cunningham, Chair of the Coagulation Resource Committee, the
CAP President, the Chair and Vice-Chair of CAP’s Council on Scientific Affairs, CAP’s
Vice President of Proficiency Testing, and CAP staff member Mary Paton.
9. Committee Reports
a. PT/EQA Committee chaired by Dr. Ellinor Peerschke
A conference call of the PT/EQA committee will take place on September 12 to discuss
the December program at ASH and a von Willebrand factor survey update.
b. Education Committee chaired by Dr. Catherine Hayward
Dr. Hayward notes that with the exceptionally high level of activities, there may be too
much material generated from surveys and questionnaires in the past year to present all
of this during the NASCOLA meeting during ASH in December 2006. The activities to
report on include the recently completed Strategic Planning Questionnaire, the heparininduced
thrombocytopenia questionnaire by Dr. Zehnder, and the PT/EQA committee
updates. Therefore, it was agreed to defer a more detailed presentation of the
NASCOLA/ECAT lupus anticoagulant questionnaire presentation until the 2007 Mayo
meeting, since some of the information was presented last year. The December 2006
ASH meeting will likely take place on Sunday 12:30-2:30 pm, followed by an Executive
Committee meeting from 2:30-3:30 pm. ACTION ITEM: Dr. Schmaier is working to find
a venue for the ASH meeting. Dr. Hayward will speak with Dr. Peerschke to further plan
the December meeting content.
Dr. Hayward and Dr. Nichols provided a short update on planning for the second Mayo/
NASCOLA coagulation testing quality conference April 25-27, 2007 in Minneapolis, The
NASCOLA Education Committtee conference call minutes from July 18, 2006 (pending)
contain a summary of preliminary plans and concepts. The NASCOLA Education
Committee (which serves as the conference external advisory planning committee) and
Dr. Nichols will be following up this Fall as plans evolve.
c. Membership Committee to be chaired by Dr. Elizabeth Van Cott
As noted in previous meeting minutes, the membership committee will be re-established
in the Fall of 2006. ACTION ITEM: Dr. Van Cott will initiate communication among the
membership committee by email/conference call. This newly re-created committee will
include Dr. Zehnder, Dr. Nichols, Ms. Plumhoff, Dr. Schmaier, and Dr. Peerschke as
members of the committee.
d. Website Committee chaired by Dr. Catherine Hayward
This report is described above in item 5.
10. Other Business
a. Drs. Nichols and Marlar will be attending the ECAT meeting November 8-10, 2006.
Dr. Nichols will be presenting the NASCOLA ECAT LA/APL testing practices survey
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summary prepared by Dr. Hayward, Karen Moffat and others (presented by Dr.
Hayward at the ISTH SSC LA/APL subcommittee meeting in Oslo June 29).
b. The next Executive Committee meeting will be in October 2006.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:45 pm EDT.
Respectfully submitted by NASCOLA Secretary Dr. Elizabeth Van Cott, September 12, 2006
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