Susan E. Wiegers, MD, FASE, FACC

As we move into the New Year, I wanted to give our members an update on the state of ASE including our membership, finances, and the work we have done towards our strategic planning goals. Although the Presidential term runs from the date of the Scientific Sessions to the next (so June to June), the ASE budget runs on a calendar year. As of the date of writing this, we do not yet have our official final year-end fiscal report. Nevertheless, looking at the data to date it is clear that it has been a spectacular year for the ASE. We added close to a thousand new members this year and increased the members in the trainee category (both sonographers and MDs) by more than 50%. The organization has also been working hard to add new international members, and this has been accomplished through direct promotions at meetings in China, India, and the EuroEcho Imaging meeting in Seville, Spain. We also have added 12 International Alliance Partner Echo Societies to our organization which allows us to reach a broader audience with educational opportunities.

Our finances are in great shape. Some 10 years ago the Board of Directors set the goal of holding $6 million dollars in investment assets. The thought was that in a serious financial downturn, this would provide the equivalent to a one year’s operating budget. Our investment portfolio has been relatively conservative to safeguard these funds, but despite this has performed well over the years. With the exception of a planned negative budget about ten years ago, ASE has always had a neutral budget and not relied on deficit spending nor investments to fund its yearly activities. For 2015, we projected and the Board approved a neutral budget in November of 2014. After our Strategic Planning meeting in February of 2015, we added some very ambitious plans for the next three years. Rather than wait for 2016, we asked the Board in June to approve an additional $125,000 of spending to start working on our new strategic goals. We spent about $80,000 of that requested funding in 2015. Despite that “deficit” spending, as I write this in early December, we anticipate ending the year in the black. This is due to the fact that our income has been higher than expected. Beyond our increasing membership, our educational products have done very well, as have our courses and Scientific Sessions. ASE’s new textbook Comprehensive Echocardiography has sold more than 2000 copies and many of our new products released since June are also doing very well. It is because of our volunteers’ countless hours of work on these projects, occasionally but not always rewarded with small honoraria, that we have been able to produce such a broad range of educational products at reasonable prices. By the end of October, we were $239,000 above a budget estimate of $395,250 in product income—an amazing effort by our staff and our member volunteers.

It is important for the membership to understand our fiscal situation so that our 2016 budget makes sense to them. After a long discussion at the Executive Level and the recent Board meeting, our new budget is projected to spend slightly more than we expect to earn in 2016. We plan to spend just under $125,000 more than we have budgeted in income to advance our strategic goals. Of course, if we have another banner year with higher than predicted income, we may end up in the black again. The deficit spending will come out of our investment assets if that doesn’t happen. Why do I and the Board think this deficit plan is advisable? We have identified a number of goals in which spending on new activities is necessary to keep ASE viable and relevant to our members and patients. For instance, in working to “Attract all users of cardiovascular ultrasound,” we will use resources to develop instructional resources for medical students and medical educators as well as point of care users. We also are working to involve the structural heart team to place imaging (specifically echo) at the core of those procedures. Our second goal is to make echocardiography well known to payers and patients and have ASE represent the field. I have written about our expansive Advocacy efforts before but these tend to be resource intensive activities that continue to require expenditures. Our third goal of making ASE the accelerant to push Innovation in Echo Applications and Techniques is evidenced by our Echovation Challenge 2016. Please check this new competition out ( https://herox.com/Echovation2016 ). By the way, the ASE Foundation budget and finances are separate from the ASE budget, and the monies raised for this are used for research and travel grants, educational grants, guideline-related projects, and our humanitarian missions. I hope you agree that ASE should invest now in the future of the field and in building resources for our members. If you have questions, you can reach me at president@asecho.org .

Susan E. Wiegers, MD, FASE, FACC is Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and a Professor of Medicine at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.