She has served on the AASM board of directors since 2006 and has held numerous leadership positions in other professional societies and organizations. Collop has served on the American Board of Sleep Medicine (ABSM) board of directors since 1998, holding the position of ABSM president from 2002-2009. She also is a member of the board of directors of the American Sleep Medicine Foundation, for which she previously served on the Executive Committee and as Secretary – Treasurer. Collop also was on the founding committee of the American Board of Medical Specialties Sleep Medicine Examination Committee representing the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), and is currently serving on the ABIM Pulmonary Self Evaluation Process committee.
Collop has been named one of the “Best Doctors in America” and Baltimore’s “Top Doctor” in pulmonary and critical care medicine and sleep medicine, as well as a Distinguished Alumna for Natural Sciences by Edinboro University. She also has received several prestigious awards, including the Al Soffer Award for Editorial Excellence and the College Medalist from the American College of Chest Physicians, and the Helmut S. Schmidt Award from the American Board of Sleep Medicine.
She is an associate editor of the journal Chest and is on the editorial boards of Sleep Medicine, Pulmonary Reviews, and American Family Physician. A recognized expert in sleep-related breathing disorders, Collop has conducted research and co-authored numerous studies on topics such as diagnostic testing for sleep-disordered breathing, the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and the relationship between sleep apnea and comorbid medical conditions such as Down syndrome and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. As chair of the AASM’s Portable Monitoring Task Force, she was the lead author of the landmark paper, “Clinical guidelines for the use of unattended portable monitors in the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea in adult patients,” which was published in the December 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
Under Collop’s leadership, the AASM will continue to be at the forefront in setting standards and promoting excellence in sleep medicine health care, education and research. Having recently launched accreditation programs for both non-Medicare DME suppliers and out of center sleep testing, the AASM will continue to equip sleep centers with resources that help them provide the highest quality of medical care for patients with sleep disorders. Collop was the task force chair and is the lead author of the AASM’s new technology evaluation of OSA devices for out of center sleep testing, which will be published in the next year. Other AASM task forces are developing a new clinical guideline for diagnostic testing for adult OSA, which will combine recommendations for both overnight polysomnography in a sleep laboratory and out of center sleep testing; and working on a third edition of The International Classification of Sleep Disorders, which is the essential diagnostic and coding manual for the sleep field.
As changes are implemented nationally to reform the U.S. healthcare system, the AASM will continue to educate public and private insurers, as well as elected officials, about the beneficial effects of diagnosis, treatment and management of sleep disorders by board-certified sleep specialists in AASM-accredited sleep disorders centers. The AASM also will further its Future of Sleep Medicine initiative to examine how changes in healthcare delivery might impact the field of sleep medicine, and it will continue to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on a proposal for a partnership between the AASM and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test the effectiveness of an integrated delivery model for the treatment of sleep disorders.
One of Collop’s goals as president is for the AASM to promote education about sleep and its disorders at all levels, including undergraduate, graduate and professional continuing education, as well as grades K-12. She believes that educating children about sleep will improve their health and introduce them to the fields of sleep medicine and sleep research, and she will further advance the AASM’s initiative to develop children’s books, classroom lesson plans, and teacher education programs.
Collop also will ensure that the AASM continues to advance the understanding of sleep and sleep disorders through strategic scientific research that is funded by the American Sleep Medicine Foundation (ASMF), which has awarded nearly $5 million in grants since 2000. The AASM also will collaborate further with other organizations such as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research; and the Sleep Research Society to promote funding opportunities for sleep research at a national level.
As the founding president of the Maryland Sleep Society, Collop is committed to advancing the field of sleep medicine at the local level and knows that sleep professionals can effectively promote and protect the profession locally by uniting together. During her term as president the AASM will continue to advance an initiative to help members in every state establish and incorporate a state sleep society.
Other issues on which Collop will focus include revising the process by which the AASM develops standards of practice, incorporating sleep medicine in nursing school curricula, encouraging growth in the number of sleep medicine training programs that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, providing the public with accurate information about sleep and sleep disorders and furthering collaborative efforts with colleagues in behavioral sleep medicine, dental sleep medicine and sleep technology.