2022 Annual Report

The ASH Hematology Review Series, designed for fellows preparing to take the internal medicine hematology certification exam or those desiring a comprehensive update of hematology standards of care, returned for its successful third installment. The 2022 series, airing weekly in the months leading up to fall Board Exams, included a total of 39 lectures on classical and malignant hematology topics, as well as 16 interactive virtual study sessions led by subject matter experts. A new offering of this year’s series was the “Rapid-Fire Q&A Sessions” facilitated by two members of the ASH Trainee Council. More than 5,200 people participated in the 2022 Hematology Review Series.

2022 was an exciting year for the ASH Clinical Research Training Institute. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 CRTI cohorts had been unable to meet in person, so rather than inviting a new class for the 2022 program year, ASH convened the 2020 and 2021 groups for an in-person workshop in August. The first-ever merging of two cohorts was well-received, with participants benefiting from enhanced joint programming and increased networking opportunities.

The ASH Medical Educators Institute returned as an in-person workshop for the first time since 2019 with 20 participants and 14 faculty meeting in Washington, DC, for the three-day workshop. The 2022 program implemented lessons learned from the virtual format used during the pandemic; as a result, this year’s program was more immersive than ever, kicking off with the in-person workshop in the fall, followed by monthly virtual cohort educational sessions, webinars open to all ASH members, bi-monthly small group virtual meetings, virtual happy hours, and more.

The ASH-EHA Translational Research Training in Hematology program hosted its 2020 cohort (which hadn’t met due to the pandemic) in March 2022 in France, and then followed up with a two-day program in New Orleans prior to the ASH Annual Meeting.

ASH worked urgently in the wake of the Dobbs decision to develop and release a policy statement on the right to maternal health care. The statement outlined the many blood disorders that put pregnant women at risk of severe, even fatal, health complications and stated that access to evidence-based medical information and lifesaving medical options are a maternal right. ASH also signed on to a letter initiated by the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and another developed by the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG).

In 2022, in recognition of the growing intersection between hematology and maternal morbidity and mortality, ASH approved the creation of the Working Group on Maternal Health in Hematology. The group curated maternal health care resources including clinical, research, and policy resources, and led advocacy and education efforts such as 2022 ASH Annual Meeting sessions outlining how ASH members could get involved to effect change and improve maternal health outcomes. As part of ASH's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the Society has made a series of complimentary sessions on an array of DEI topics (including maternal health care) accessible on ASH Academy On Demand.

The ASH Women in Hematology Working Group, established in 2019 to increase awareness and advocacy for gender equity in hematology, celebrated Women’s History Month this year by hosting a panel discussion moderated by 2022 ASH President Jane N. Winter, MD. The panel covered challenges and opportunities unique to women in academic hematology. The virtual discussion can be found on ASH Academy On Demand. The working group also hosted an event at the 2022 ASH Annual Meeting that was designed to foster new mentorship and networking relationships for women in the field.

The ASH Compendium on Maternal Health, a collection of peer-reviewed articles on maternal health care from Blood, Blood Advances, and the Hematology Education Program, provided a convenient resource for hematologists caring for patients who are pregnant. It featured such clinically relevant topics as managing pregnancy with various blood disorders, preventing venous thromboembolism and iron deficiency in pregnancy, and offering sustainable care in low-resource settings. Nearly 2,500 copies were disseminated at the 2022 ASH Annual Meeting.

As in previous years, DEI was an important focus at the 2022 ASH Annual Meeting. The ASH Health Equity Studio offered a space for attendees to recognize inequities in health care, as well as tools for attendees to make immediate changes in their home institutions. Scientific workshops covered various health equity issues including diversification of clinical trials and novel research for patients in underserved populations such as geriatric populations and people in low-income countries. New offerings at this year’s meeting included the LGBTQIA+ Community Networking Brunch, and the Disability Community Networking Breakfast that allowed attendees to create a sense of belonging and allyship in their communities. As part of ASH’s commitment to DEI, the Society has made a series of complimentary DEI sessions accessible on ASH Academy On Demand.

In 2022, the ASH Minority Recruitment Initiative (MRI) – created to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities training in hematology-related fields – supported 45 recipients, committing more than $2 million to awardees. In addition to financial support, the awards offer recipients opportunities for research and travel, interactions with career and research mentors, complimentary access to ASH publications, and more. The ASH MRI was first created in 2003, and will be celebrating 20 years of helping create a more inclusive and diverse hematology workforce in 2023. There have been 475 awardees since its inception.

ASH released the Anti-Racism Toolkit and DEI Toolkit to help hematologists further their understanding of DEI and learn day-to-day best practices as clinicians, researchers, and educators.

In 2021, ASH established the Health Equity Collective, a group of companies seeking to help stop the trajectory, and minimize the impact, of health care inequality. This year ASH wishes to thank eight participating companies for their contributions.

In 2022, seven new member organizations joined the ASH-led Sickle Cell Disease Coalition, which aims to conquer sickle cell disease (SCD). The Coalition now represents 113 total members that have come together with an agenda to improve outcomes for individuals living with SCD.

ASH launched Bringing Sickle Cell Disease to Life, a podcast exploring the past, present, and future of sickle cell disease (SCD) and raising awareness of the challenges faced by millions living with the inherited blood disorder worldwide. Through conversations with researchers, physicians, and patients, led by host Dr. Wally Smith of Virginia Commonwealth University, listeners learned about the history of SCD, its global impact, disparities and bias in SCD, and promising news on its management and treatment. Across three seasons and 14 episodes, the podcast amassed more than 3,500 downloads.

ASH continued to maintain the living Guidelines on Use of Anticoagulation in Patients with COVID-19. Throughout the year, as new data emerged, the guideline panel revisited the recommendations for the use of anticoagulation in critically and acutely ill COVID-19 patients, ensuring that clinicians could base their decision-making on the latest evidence.

ASH partnered with 12 hematology societies in 10 Latin American countries to adapt the 2022 Guidelines for Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) in Surgical and Medical Patients and Long-Distance Travelers in Latin America to provide evidence-based recommendations about the prevention of VTE in the region. The guidelines, published in Blood Advances, were also made available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, and paired with clinical tools and educational resources in the languages to help patients, hematologists, and health care providers understand and implement the recommendations.

The 2022 Highlights of ASH meetings in North America, the Mediterranean, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America were presented virtually, giving participants access to clinically focused experiences summarizing the top hematology research presented at the 63rd ASH Annual Meeting along with curated regional content for Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Mediterranean, and North America, along with interactive sessions and networking opportunities. More than 1,100 attendees joined the virtual meeting.

The 2022 ASH Meeting on Hematologic Malignancies, held in Chicago and online, featured top experts in the field presenting the latest cutting-edge clinical research. Comprehensive clinical content was presented by experts via “How I Treat” style presentations that showcased evidence-based treatment approaches. It also offered opportunities for participants to interact with colleagues in a small group setting and to gain knowledge that would have an immediate impact on their practice. More than 400 attendees joined the hybrid meeting.

ASH Academy On Demand provides hematologists with the highest-quality and most up-to-date educational resources to guide learning at all career stages. In 2022, the Precision Hematology Webinar Series offered clinicians and researchers information on the latest technologies related to data acquisition, diagnosis, and decision-making for hematologic diseases. The Journal Club highlighted seminal papers in hematology published in Blood or Blood Advances. The IMPACT Learning series and audio lessons discussed racial disparities among African Americans with multiple myeloma and gave participants the chance to learn how to address barriers to care and strategies for culturally sensitive communication. The CAR T-Cell Therapy Consults were launched in 2022, providing learners with case-based guidance for identifying appropriate patients for CAR T-cell therapy and recognizing the toxicities associated with this treatment.

The 2022 Sickle Cell Disease Centers Workshop was held in-person for the first time since the pandemic. Health care providers convened to learn how to build comprehensive care centers to improve outcomes for adults living with sickle cell disease (SCD). The workshop, taught by SCD center leaders, addressed subjects such as developing business plans, advocating to stakeholders, the ins and outs of operations, and approaches to measuring impact while improving the quality of care provided in centers to help participants at institutions across the nation plan their own centers.

For years, ASH has worked to educate members of Congress about the lack of quality care for individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD). Since its 2021 introduction, the Sickle Cell Disease Comprehensive Care Act (H.R. 6216/S. 3389), which aims to improve access to care for SCD, gained 22 total cosponsors in the House and Senate. This growing show of support by members of Congress is a result of ASH’s advocacy on several fronts in 2022: ASH Grassroots Network members wrote and called their legislators, the ASH Committee on Government Affairs met with nearly 30 congressional offices in March, ASH spearheaded a joint letter with more than 60 other organizations urging Congress to advance the bill, and more.

ASH continued to educate policymakers on the lack of access to blood transfusions in hospice care and advocate for the Improving Access to Transfusion Care for Hospice Patients Act, S. 2566, which would establish a demonstration program to promote the provision of palliative blood transfusions for patients receiving the Medicare hospice benefit.

In October 2022, ASH and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cohosted the inaugural ASH-FDA Collaboration: A Workshop on Regulatory Science in Hematology at ASH headquarters. This two-day meeting allowed ASH members to gain a better understanding of the FDA as well as insight into regulatory issues in hematology drug development. More than 50 FDA and ASH members engaged on such topics as clinical and translational research, trial design, and drug development. Based on the success of the workshop, ASH and the FDA plan to offer it again next year.

ASH released a new policy Statement on a Strong Blood Supply, which supports steps to ensure a safe and adequate blood supply and to further encourage donations from all healthy people capable of donating.

Established in 2004, the International Consortium on Acute Leukemia (ICAL) is a clinical consortium improving care for patients with leukemia in Latin America. Current member countries include Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Currently implementing a standard of care treatment protocol for acute myeloid leukemia, the consortium has enrolled 451 patients in the study. Based on the ICAL model, ASH established the Children’s International Consortium on Acute Leukemia to improve diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in the Caribbean. Current member countries include the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Hospitals and universities in low- and middle-income countries  were provided with complimentary virtual access to educational materials through ASH’s International Outreach Initiative (IOI). More than 75 countries participated in the program, receiving free resources from ASH in their region.

Blood published 905 articles in 2022, including review series covering COVID-19, virus-mediated hematologic disease, and erythropoiesis. Blood published articles on the International Consensus Classification of Myeloid and Lymphoid Neoplasms, as well as companion papers highlighting the use of genomic profiling in clinical decision making for these malignancies. A print compendium of the ICC articles was disseminated at the 2022 ASH Annual Meeting. The journal achieved an Impact Factor of 25.669, a Google Scholar h5-index of 165, and an Eigenfactor of 0.19549. Finally, Blood had 205,634 total annual citations, maintaining its position as the most cited journal in hematology and one of the most cited journals in science.

Blood Advances, ASH’s online, open-access journal, continues to grow in impact. The journal published 686 articles in 2022, with top-cited papers including one describing successful allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in patients with VEXAS syndrome at two different centers and another describing humoral response to the mRNA anti-COVID-19 vaccines in patients with CLL. In 2022, the journal also continued to provide timely updates to the recommendations provided within ASH’s living guidelines on the use of anticoagulation for thromboprophylaxis for patients with COVID-19. Blood Advances achieved an Impact Factor of 7.642, a Google Scholar h5-index of 77, and an Eigenfactor of 0.04833. The journal also saw a significant increase in total annual citations to 13,517. The journal publishes more peer-reviewed hematology research than any other academic journal worldwide.

In 2022, ASH Clinical News continued to thrive under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Aaron T. Gerds, MD, MS. The publication introduced a new editorial section, Algorithms in Hematology, which provides handy graphics to help clinicians determine the best treatment course for a variety of hematologic diseases, as well as “From the Desk of…,” a series of videos from the editor-in-chief introducing each issue. ASH Clinical News received five editorial awards during the year, including national bronze and regional silver Azbee Awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for a feature article on the unique issues of treating athletes for blood disorders, and a Communicator Award from the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts for an editorial by Dr. Gerds.

In 2022, The Hematologist selected the next Editor-in-Chief, Shaji Kumar, MD. Dr. Kumar will follow Laura C. Michaelis, MD, who served in the role for five years. Dr. Michaelis not only developed new editorial sections of The Hematologist but also oversaw the launch of The Hematologist podcast, which allowed hematologists to listen on the go.

The ASH-SAP, a comprehensive resource to keep hematologists up to date on the latest advances in adult and pediatric hematology, published its 8th Edition in August 2022. ASH-SAP offers self-directed learning and review with case studies, key points, graphics, animation, and a glossary. The 8th Edition features 25 fully updated chapters, 17 videos, and more than 250 new case-based, multiple-choice questions.

ASH published How I Treat 2022, a collection of the top “How I Treat” articles from Blood, many of which were updated to reflect the most recent scientific and clinically relevant information.

Through charitable support from the ASH Foundation, ASH is able to enhance and expand important hematology programs and pursue new, visionary initiatives.

The ASH Foundation Run/Walk set a record for number of participants (2,167) and doubled 2021’s revenue. Proceeds from the 2022 ASH Foundation Run/Walk supported the ASH Global Programs Fund.