The APSS is a partnership between the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. It was formed in 2002 and has its own set of bylaws. What does the APSS do? It has two main functions: The APSS administers our annual scientific meeting, which is now known as the SLEEP Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, and it produces the journal SLEEP.

The summer is drawing to a close with Labor Day in view and many schools back in session – and along with that all the traffic! The fall also brings the last chance for the “grandfathers and grandmothers” to sit for the American Board of Medical Specialties sleep medicine certification examination. I had the privilege to lecture at the second of three board review courses administered by the AASM in Denver a couple of weeks back. The room was packed as it will be for the next one scheduled for Reston, Va., in September.

This week’s HypnoGram will focus on the AASM staff. I have been a member of the AASM since 1990 and have greatly enjoyed watching it grow. For those of you who have worked with the AASM staff, I am sure you will agree that they are great – always professional, courteous and helpful. The number of staff has grown commensurate with the society. The AASM has added several PhDs to assist with the development of practice parameters; MBAs to assist with accounting; as well as people with political and health economics experience to assist with legislative and coding issues.

Welcome back to my latest HypnoGram following a short hiatus while preparing for my first official AASM board of directors meeting as the president.  We met in “the big apple,” which would have better been described as “the baked apple” or “a warm apple tart” as the temperatures were in the 100s!  But don’t worry, the board was huddled up in an air-conditioned hotel meeting room for the weekend so we were not exposed to that dreadful heat!

My thoughts for this week center around STANDARDS. The AASM has set the standards for sleep medicine since its inception many years ago: Practice parameters; center accreditation; standards for physicians, which eventually morphed into the American Board of Sleep Medicine; ASTEP, an education program for sleep technologists; DME accreditation; out-of-center sleep testing accreditation; the list goes on. But all of these processes require constant evaluation and re-evaluation to keep them current. As the field has grown, so has the AASM staff, by leaps and bounds, to stay ahead of the required changes. As healthcare reform looms large, the AASM - as the leader in the field of sleep medicine - needs to stay ahead of the curve by anticipating changes and being nimble in improving our standards as necessary.

Hello everyone and welcome to the second installment of the Hypnogram. This week I want to update you on some of the current projects the AASM is working on. Out of center sleep testing for sleep apnea is currently a vexing issue for many centers. We are trying to help centers in their deployment of OCST.

Hello to all AASM members, and welcome to the first edition of the HypnoGram. This blog updates members on the workings of the board of directors and highlight activities of the AASM.  I suspect that some weeks it will be full of board related information, such as those weeks following our board meetings and executive committee phone calls, and other weeks it will be more editorial in nature with musings of mine on the state of our field.