Update from the President on the International Society for Laboratory Hematology, including initiatives to promote education and best practices

As President of the International Society for Laboratory Hematology (ISLH), I am pleased to provide this update on ISLH, including our organization's efforts to promote education and best practices in laboratory hematology worldwide. These are exciting times for our society. ISLH owes many thanks to its leaders and members. As Education Director for ISLH 2017, Dr. Tracy George (who is also the ISLH Vice President of Scientific Communications) oversaw ISLH 2017 development in collaboration with the program co-Chairs, Dr. Joyce Rogers and Dr. Sherrie Perkins, and Dr. Jim Zehnder, the Co-Chair from the North American Specialized Coagulation Laboratory Association (NASCOLA) which was our partner organization for ISLH 2017. This team had highly valued support from the ISLH Scientific Committees (which included NASCOLA members) and their Chairs and Vice Chairs who provided important suggestions and input on the meeting content. The ISLH Scientific Committees have become essential for ISLH in order to engage the talents of a large number of experts in laboratory hematology in the planning of its annual conferences; our society welcomes these individuals to participate in other ISLH activities. ISLH is very proud of the fifth Educational Issue containing State-of-the-Art reviews by ISLH 2017 speakers and thanks ISLH Board members, Mr. Bob Gosselin (also a NASCOLA Officer) and Dr. Parul Bhargava for serving as the Guest Editors of this issue. ISLH is grateful to Dr. Szu Hee Lee and Dr. Tracy George, for their leadership in the roles of Co-Editors-in-Chief of the International Journal of Laboratory Hematology (IJLH). Dr. Szu Hee Lee is an ex officio member of the ISLH Board, which recognizes the importance of the IJLH Editors to our Society. ISLH is fostering strong linkages between our society's journal, the ISLH leadership, and the team of Associate Editors and Editorial Board, to collaboratively promote the journal successes. Many individuals are choosing to submit excellent articles to our society's journal and this has contributed to the journal's rising impact factor. ISLH has increased its efforts to promote education in the field of laboratory hematology. Dr. Joyce Rogers, the ISLH Vice President of Education, has had a very important role in leading these efforts. The premeeting, educationally focused workshop (this year, expertly chaired by Dr. Rogers and Dr. Gina Zini) has become an increasingly popular part of the ISLH meeting and it is followed by a series of scheduled webinars, offered free-of-charge, to disseminate the workshop content to the laboratory hematology community worldwide. In 2016 alone, 1661 individuals attended the ISLH educational webinars, and a 2177 of ISLH members viewed these webinars through the ISLH webinar archive (which requires member login). In total, the ISLH educational website received 10 804 visits by the end of 2016. The ISLH website offer open access to videos of the ILSH endowed lectureships (the Berend Houwen lecture, and the Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Lecture) to inspire individuals in our field around the world. ISLH has also made openly available on its website the latest webinar and elearning items (which include interactive case studies and online courses) so that individuals working in resource-limited settings can benefit from ISLH educational offerings. The enhanced educational offerings of our society, that our members are helping our society create, are making many more laboratory professionals aware of ISLH and the benefits of membership. ISLH has actively pursued collaborations with other organizations to support the global laboratory hematology community. ISLH is currently partnering with the International Clinical Cytometry Society, the European Hematology Association, American Society for Clinical Pathology, NASCOLA, the Japanese Society for Laboratory Hematology, the Thrombosis Haemostasis Summit of North America, Societa Italiana di Patologia Clinica e Medicina di Laboratorio (SIPMeL), the Turkish Society for Hematology, the Korean Society for Laboratory Hematology, the Korean Society for Laboratory Medicine and the Pakistan Society of Hematology and others on a variety of initiatives. ISLH is now a member of the World Association of Societies of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (WASPALM) which gives laboratory hematology a voice among societies of pathology and laboratory medicine. ISLH and WASPALM share the mission to improve health worldwide by promoting the teaching and practice of laboratory medicine. In 2017, ISLH is proudly launching another new initiative, a mentorship award program to facilitate mentorship for individuals from developing countries for research projects and/or guideline development. This program was developed by ISLH under my leadership, with input from Dr. Maria Proytcheva and Dr. Albert Huisman. The mentorship award recipients will meet with their ISLH mentor at two consecutive meetings and participate in monthly conference calls with their mentor. The 2017 recipients who wish mentorship for guideline development will attend the guideline workshop (discussed below) to jump start their project. As a society, ISLH has made efforts to promote the development and use of high quality, evidence-based guidelines. In 2017, ISLH is holding a special workshop on developing evidence-based guidelines for laboratory hematology, led by Dr. Gordon Guyatt (recipient of the 2017 Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Lecture Award from ISLH and a world expert on evidence-based medicine and guidelines), and co-facilitated by Dr. Adam Cuker and Dr. Mark Crowther. This workshop recognizes that our field needs leaders and mentors to enable the development of high quality, evidence-based guidelines. The first ideas for such a workshop date back to when we assembled an inventory of current guidelines relevant to laboratory hematology1 and gathered the opinions of ISLH members on guidelines and guideline development.2 Ms. Karen Moffat (an author on these initiatives1, 2) has kept the guideline inventory current, through posting updates on the ISLH website that attracted >2400 visitors in 2016 alone. As ISLH members recognize and value the best practices in guideline development (Hayward et al.2), we hope that the 2017 workshop, the ISLH 2017 sessions on evidence-based guidelines, and the ISLH mentorship program will facilitate the development of high quality, evidence-based laboratory hematology guidelines going forward. ISLH is grateful to other important leaders in our society. Dr. Pall Onundarson is making important contributions to ISLH successes in his role as the Treasurer on the Executive Board of our Society. Dr. Giuseppe d'Onofrio, in his role as Vice President of Membership Engagement, continues to lead initiatives, on behalf of our Executive, to grow and engage the membership in Society activities and enhance the value of membership. Our Immediate Past President, Dr. Charles Eby, has been a valued contributor to our Executive and chairs the ISLH Nominating Committee that has an essential role in leadership renewal. Dr. Eby and Dr. d'Onofrio are actively encouraging members with leadership skills to become engaged in the leadership and activities of our Society. ISLH is grateful to the many individuals that serve as important leaders on our board as elected members and councilors. We are also grateful to individuals that participate in our scientific, educational and grant committee activities. Our society greatly values input from the ISLH general membership, including its nominations for ISLH awards, membership on ISLH scientific committees, and for future leaders that wish to stand for ISLH elections. As President, I am very proud of the growing accomplishments of ISLH and the great success of our educational and networking initiatives. Our society has an important and growing role in supporting the laboratory hematology community worldwide. Respectfully submitted by Catherine Hayward

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.