Limited seats are now available for the AASM’s new Intermediate Sleep Center Management Series courses Strategies for Successful Billing and Expanding and Improving Your Sleep Center which will be held April 21–22, 2012 at the AASM National Office in Darien, Illinois (a Chicago suburb). Registration for this series will be available until Thursday, April 19, 2012 or until the course sells out. All sleep centers are encouraged to send their management/administrative staff to this series which will feature top faculty including incoming AASM President, Samuel Fleishman, MD.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine thanks all members who voted in the 2012 AASM Board of Directors Elections in March. The AASM has finished tabulating the ballots, and each candidate was approved by a majority of respondents.

Obstructive sleep apnea and other symptoms of OSA are associated with probable major depression, regardless of factors like weight, age, sex or race, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Member recruiters help advance sleep medicine by encouraging their professional colleagues to join the AASM. For each new member recruited, these individuals receive a $15 Recognition of Excellence Money (REM) Voucher that can be used toward AASM products and course registrations. Each member referral also enters recruiters into a Grand Prize Drawing to win a complimentary 2013 AASM course registration including travel expenses. Learn how to participate in the AASM Member-Get-A-Member Campaign.

The SLEEP 2012 Plenary Session features two keynote addresses. Dr. Mark Rosekind, an expert in fatigue and transportation and one of the National Transportation Safety Board’s five current Board Members, will present From Bench to Planes, Trains and Automobiles: How Sleep Science Can Enhance Transportation Safety, and Dr. Robert Stickgold will present Sleep, Memory, and Dreams: Extracting the Meaning of our Lives. The SLEEP 2012 Plenary Session is Monday, June 11 from 7:45am–10:00am. Complete bios for Drs. Rosekind, Stickgold and other SLEEP 2012 invited lecturers can be found in the SLEEP 2012 Preliminary Program. With ticketed sessions selling out quickly and the Advanced Registration Deadline of April 25 approaching, members are encouraged to register early for this year’s meeting.

Researchers at the American College of Cardiology in Chicago presented findings last weekend suggesting that sleeping less than six or more than eight hours a night doubles the risk cardiovascular complications.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine Facebook page now honors the history of the AASM and the practice of sleep medicine. Facebook's newest feature, the Facebook timeline, is a tool that allows organizations to chart out their history. The AASM is using the timeline to post photos from past meetings, important organizational milestones and breakthroughs in sleep research, for members and individuals with an interest in sleep medicine to browse.

Time is running out for practicing sleep technologists with the RPSGT certification to apply for equivalency status to obtain the Registered Sleep Technologist (RST) certification from the American Board of Sleep Medicine (ABSM). RPSGTs who apply for equivalency before Saturday will be able to obtain the new RST certificate without taking the ABSM Sleep Technologist Registry Examination, which will be offered later this year.

Each year, the APSS Program Committee is tasked with selecting courses and sessions for the SLEEP Annual Meeting that will provide attendees with state of the art information on the latest topics in the field. This year, the Program Committee has introduced several new session formats and has included sessions on many hot-topics in sleep. Incoming Chair of the Program Committee and Regional Medical Director at Sleep HealthCenters, Douglas Kirsch, MD has reviewed the SLEEP 2012 program and selected several discussion groups and clinical workshops that will be of greatest relevance to attendees in clinical practice.

All AASM 200-Epoch Scoring Reviews have received a full system upgrade to more closely resemble professional scoring software. The 200-Epoch Scoring Review upgrade mirrors the changes to the AASM Inter-scorer Reliability program from January. Both systems offer a greatly improved testing experience with larger records, the ability to score from a 120-second view and keyboard commands for faster scoring. Try the Inter-scorer Reliability interactive demo to experience the updated 200-Epoch Scoring Review system.

Wednesday, March 21 is the final day that the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC (APSS) is accepting late-breaking abstracts for SLEEP 2012. Researchers will have an opportunity to present their latest scientific findings during a scientific session on Wednesday, June 13 from 12:15pm - 1:30pm. Up to five abstracts will be accepted for oral presentations in which authors will present their high-quality emerging data found between Dec. 2011 and March 2012.

The AASM currently offers several products and educational resources for sleep centers that see pediatric patients including patient education brochures, clinician and technologist training books and online education opportunities.

Lunch sessions at the SLEEP Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC (APSS) fill up quickly each year with a limited number of seats available in each session. In anticipation of a large turnout in Boston for SLEEP 2012 this June, the APSS encourages all individuals who will be attending the meeting to register early and reserve their space in lunch sessions and postgraduate courses before these events sell out.

Members of the AASM and the American Association of Sleep Technologists have until this Friday, March 23, 2012 to save on registration fees to the AASM’s Intermediate Sleep Center Management Series courses, Strategies for Successful Billing and Expanding and Improving Your Sleep Center.