Throughout the year, NEHA hosts webinars for our community members. Webinars are live events with audio, video and chat capabilities. This allows members of the New England bleeding disorders community to get involved with our chapter and ask questions without needing to travel to one of our events.

Educational Webinar: Legal Rights & Health Insurance

This session was designed for the bleeding disorders community and explored your legal rights in the workplace. It also provided attendees with an overview on health insurance. Our speaker also shared resources for patients on how to afford treatment. A question and answer period followed.

Genetic Counseling and Bleeding Disorders

This webinar will created to help our community learn about the genetic counseling field and get a quick refresher on some basic information related to your genes. This provided thought-provoking cases to help you better understand how genetic counselors help those in the bleeding disorders community. In addition, this webinar will you will learn how our community can stay involved and informed as technology and therapeutics improve.

vWD Retreat: Advances in Diagnosis & Management of vWD

This video is a recording of the Keynote Session at our 2022 vWD Retreat. The speaker is Dr. Veronica Flood, MD, a pediatric hematologist and researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

This session discussed advances in diagnosis and management of von Willebrand Disease (vWD) and highlighted current and forthcoming therapeutic options.

vWD Retreat: Managing Pain Alternatively

This video is a recording from our 2022 vWD Retreat. The speaker is Angie Lambing, Nurse Practitioner; Hematology; Retired.

Pain management can be a “sore subject” in the bleeding disorders community. In this session, participants learned about non-pharmacological pain management techniques that have documented usage in persons with bleeding disorders.

Genetic Counseling for Bleeding Disorders

On Wednesday, October 13, we hosted a special interactive webinar featuring Julia Schiller, our fall intern from the Boston University Master’s Program in Genetic Counseling. Julia provided a history of genetic counseling, shared thought-provoking cases, and explained how genetic counselors can help those in the bleeding disorders community.

Von Willebrand Retreat

Our 4th Annual von Willebrand’s Retreat took place on Saturday, July 17. This event was focused solely on families living with vWD.

This recording is of the Keynote Presentation with Dr. Christopher Walsh. Dr. Walsh spoke about the evolution of care for people with vWD, including where we are now with treatment and where we are heading. 

COVID-19 & Bleeding Disorders

This was the third and final webinar during our Consumer Medical Symposium.

Dr. Leonard Valentino, CEO of the National Hemophilia Foundation, provided an overview of bleeding disorders and COVID-19, including the effects of the virus and what to know about getting vaccinated.

Click here to read notes taken during this webinar.

Current Therapies Panel Discussion

This panel discussion took place during our Virtual Consumer Medical Symposium. This was focused on current treatments for bleeding disorders.

The panel included: Salley Pels, MD, RI Hospital; Jeremy Madrid, MD, Dartmouth Hitchcock; Shelia O’Donnell, APRN-FNP, Maine Medical Center; and Emily Bisson, CPNP-PC, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

Click here to read notes taken during this webinar.

Von Willebrand’s Retreat

Our 3rd Annual von Willebrand’s Retreat took place on Saturday, November 14. This event was focused solely on families living with vWD.

Developed with community feedback, this virtual event was led by professional facilitators and Hemophilia Treatment Center (HTC) providers. The goal of this retreat was to provide community members living with vWD a chance to learn, network, and ask questions in a more focused setting. This is a recording of the virtual event.

Genetic Counseling for Bleeding Disorders

In this webinar, participants learned about genetic counseling for bleeding disorders by discussing patient cases to better understand how genetic counselors can help those in the bleeding disorders community.

Gene Therapy Basics for Hemophilia

This presentation was in partnership with the National Hemophilia Foundation (NHF) and was designed to provide a basic overview of gene therapy for hemophilia in a way that is easy to understand.

Understanding Research: It Starts with a Zebrafish

This presentation helped explain the importance of Zebrafish related to bleeding disorders treatment and will introduce you to the Judith Graham Pool Research Fellowship. In 2019, NEHA made a large financial contribution to support this program and the great work it does for our community. This talk also explained different kinds of research, like: market research, HTC research, patient advocacy research and clinical research.

 

Treatment for vWD & Other Rare Bleeding Disorders

During this presentation, Dr. Aric Parnes, MD, adult hematologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, offered an overview of current treatments and new therapies on the horizon for von Willebrand’s Disease and other rare bleeding disorders.

The Shifting Paradigms of Hemophilia Treatment

Here, Dr. Cathy Rosenfield, MD, Tufts Floating Hospital for Children provided an overview of the current and emerging treatment landscape for people with hemophilia. During this talk, she addressed topics like: the pros and cons of current and emerging therapies, standard and extended half-life factor replacement therapies, subcutaneous therapies, and gene therapy.

Medical Marijuana & Pain

As cannabis becomes more mainstream, it is important to understand how those with bleeding disorders may incorporate it as part of their treatment program. This webinar covers the history and legalization of marijuana, legal implications when using and researching cannabis, and specifics on how to access and use cannabis legally.

COVID-19 & Bleeding Disorders

This webinar focused on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and how this relates to the bleeding disorder community and treatment options.

Dr. H. Cody Meissner, MD, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Dr. Cathy Rosenfield, Pediatric Hematologist and Associate Professor of Pediatrics came together to facilitate this discussion and to provide resources for our community.

Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling is the process of helping individuals and families living with a genetic disorder understand and adapt to the medical, psychological and familial implications of the condition. This webinar was presented by NEHA’s Intern, Janelle Shea, who is a student in the Boston University School of Medicine Master’s Program in Genetic Counseling. In this webinar, Janelle explained the the history of genetic counseling, shared some thought-provoking cases, and helped explain how genetic counselors can assist those living with a bleeding disorder.

Pros & Cons of Hemlibra Therapy

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved Hemlibra (Emicizumab), a new subcutaneous treatment for hemophilia A with or without inhibitors. To help the bleeding disorders community better understand this therapy, we hosted a webinar with the Boston Hemophilia Center to discuss the pros and cons of this new treatment.

Von Willebrand Disease: Diagnosis & Treatment‎

During NEHA’s von Willebrand Retreat (vWD), Dr. Salley Pels, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Yale Medical School and the Co-Director of the Yale Hemostasis Center, provided the keynote presentation to all attendees. This webinar provides you with a fundamental understanding of von Willebrand Disease (how it works in the body and the products used to manage the condition), as well as a deeper dive into the more advanced nuances.

A Patient’s Perspective: Clinical Trials & Emerging Therapies

How do you decide whether or not to participate in a clinical trial? What does informed consent mean? What are good questions to ask your provider about new approved treatments and emerging therapies? These are just some of the questions that were answered by a panel of community members in this educational webinar.

Innovations in Care: Gene Therapy

During NEHA’s FallFest, Dr. Stacy Croteau, MD, MMS, attending hematologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, gave an introduction to gene therapy. Due to positive feedback about her presentation, Dr. Croteau, delivered her presentation again during a webinar for all community members to watch. This webinar explains what gene therapy is, the history of this potential treatment, an overview of recent and current clinical studies, and an outlook of what this could mean for those living with hemophilia.