Full Transcript Introduction and AVA Media Day Overview 0:00 It's difficult for professional organizations to continue to add value beyond that initial excitement and say, oh, wow, OK, 0:08 I get group purchasing discounts. 0:10 I can get some travel discounts, definitely get my money's worth from a free consultation with a health care attorney. 0:15 But once you kind of utilize some of that as a member, you start saying, okay, wait a second, i've got to pay X amount of dollars per month for what? 0:22 And immediately, just to address that, Meet David Light, co-founder of Healthcare Accounting Solutions and chief operating officer of the American IV Association. 0:31 With over 20 years in healthcare, David's expertise spans clinical management, consulting and innovative program growth. 0:39 Stay with us as David shares American I-V Association plans for 2025 in the healthcare space. 0:46 The large majority of that membership dues go towards the promotion of the first initiative, which is us as Ava, the American IV Association, 0:53 continuing to be the voice of industry. 0:55 David, I wanna put some emphasis on what you're talking about of things are not cheap. 1:00 Us as the America IV association, we're not here to just make money. 1:04 It's for us to heard, We have to able to spend money on certain platforms and things. 1:09 They're gonna donate free ads on Facebook for to get our message out there. 1:19 Welcome to a healthy point of view podcast. 1:22 I'm your host Sam Sahara today. 1:24 We have a special edition for Ava's media day. 1:27 That's the American ID association. 1:29 And we have, uh, special guests who I work very closely with David light, who's, the chief operating officer. 1:35 Yeah. 1:36 Talk about a few different things. 1:38 Thanks for having me, Sam. 1:39 Yeah, absolutely. 1:40 So why don't we start with talking about what Media Day is? 1:43 Yeah. 1:43 I'll unpack that a little bit. 1:44 One of the initiatives for the American Ivy Association for 2024 was really to become the voice of industry. 1:50 That was our main mission. 1:52 And we knew we had a lot of other things behind that, which obviously you as the chairman are involved in. 1:56 But we felt like if we weren't servicing the main vision of becoming the Voice of Industry, the other thing really didn't matter. 2:03 You know, that was the leader. 2:06 And one of the ways we evaluated the most effective way to do that over the course of year was we did a media day in May, 2:12 which was our first one, May 17th. 2:14 It was fantastic. 2:15 We had tons of people come in, industry leaders from all over country, we had presenters from the world, and we have well over a thousand people that registered 2:24 and viewed that across the nation.
2024 Leadership and Committee Building 2:26 So things went really well, but also as a first one, as you know, and you learn things from the first, one then you want to do them better the second time. 2:32 So that was an introduction to the industry as far as the landscape goes. 2:36 And it was really designed for people that weren't familiar with IV hydration to get familiar. 2:41 With IV, hydration in a few different categories. 2:44 What I mean by that is we reached out not only to Ava members, But also non AVA members and people in the history. 2:50 Then in addition, the press and we targeted a lot of regulators and invited them as well across the country. 2:56 We had a lot of people show up. 2:58 How many did we have? 2:59 Yeah, we had over a thousand. 3:02 So it went really well. 3:04 One of the things we learned, you know, this is kind of funny in hindsight, was we started at nine o'clock in the morning Eastern Standard Time. 3:09 We basically negated the whole West Coast. 3:13 As exciting as that first one was, I don't think a lotta people in California woke up at 5.45 to go on a podcast at six. 3:19 So we learned that. 3:20 We made some modifications and then this one, we also changed the content layout a lot. 3:24 Since May, going into May but also since May there have been a LOT of changes in some of the different battleground states that we've seen that have stepped 3:32 up the rhetoric with regards to guidelines, opinions or positions on IV hydration as a whole. 3:39 So the theme of this media day, October 18th, starting at now 11 a.m., Eastern Standard Time instead of nine, gives everybody a little bit longer to get 3:49 up and get in on the West Coast, is the them of that is regulations. 3:53 So, the first one had some clinical aspects, had clinicians talking about effectiveness and this and that. 3:58 This one is all regulation, which is great. 4:01 The content is markedly different, and it basically assumes you've either watched the or you're familiar with the industry as a whole, 4:09 so we can go into a much deeper dive of what the landscape looks like, you know, what it's looked like what, it looks, like now what we feel like it, 4:16 looks it. 4:16 It's going forward. 4:17 Absolutely. 4:17 Yeah, absolutely. 4:18 This is exciting. 4:19 And obviously today people are listening to us because we're playing this here on October 18th. 4:25 I'm happy for everybody joining us for media day and obviously. 4:29 We're doing this because I can't attend. 4:31 I have a bachelor, not bachelor party. 4:33 That was a few weeks ago. 4:34 Definitely not a bachelorette party, I, have to be part of a wedding. 4:40 My best friend's getting married and I'm the best man. 4:43 So you and i decided, you know what, we can go ahead and get the message out by doing just a simple little podcast style information. 4:52 But yeah, this media day, I'm excited for it, giving more of that information that people are looking for of what's happening in the industry. 4:59 So yeah. 5:00 Let's go through it. 5:01 Yeah, Sam, just super appreciate you being a part of this. 5:04 I am very, very thankful. 5:05 Didn't know you last year and we developed a great friendship and professional relationship over the course of the last years. 5:12 But it'd be really interesting, as the chairman of leadership advisory board, to tell a quick summary of how 2024 played out. 5:19 We're nearing the end of it already. 5:21 That's crazy. 5:21 Thanksgiving and Halloween right around the corner. 5:24 So if you don't mind giving the audience a summary of 2024 and then maybe I'll go into a little bit of 2025 and what we think that's going to look like. 5:32 Yeah, so just brief summary. 5:34 One of our goals initially, and we started talking about this back in December of 2023, was really bringing all of these different leadership roles throughout 5:44 the industry together so we do create that one strong voice. 5:48 After we had our talks in in december of 2023, 2024 came through January and you guys on the Ava side appointed the leadership advisory board, 5:57 which consisted of myself as the chairman, Ben Crosby with Drip Bar, and then Sarah Lomas with Revive. 6:04 People saw that where now it's not something that's biased to a certain company. 6:08 It was impartial with all of these different minds from different companies. 6:12 And then we started developing the different committees to represent the areas that we want to address. 6:17 Everything from marketing, from standardization. 6:20 We put the scientific advisory board together with a lot of the chief medical officers that make up a whole lot the companies in the industry. 6:27 We put the position statement in place as well, too.
2025 Membership Value and Education Plans 6:30 So a lot of great things are being built. 6:33 2024 has been more of creating that infrastructure and the foundation of Ava for the industry. 6:40 And I think now we're in a place, after having our first Media Day and now having today's Media day, we are in position for 2025 to start offering some 6:50 more classes and things that people can benefit from. 6:53 One of the things that I'd like to see as the chairman of The Association and what I've been working on is being able to offer courses on IV nutrition, 7:02 how to treat your patients with certain protocols and some of best practices. 7:07 Also us certifying facilities so people know that this is an American IV Association certified facility and people feel comfortable participating there 7:16 with a lot of things happening in the industry where people are cutting corners. 7:20 We want to make sure that there's a reputable stratification process that consumers can relate to and feel very comfortable going to these facilities that 7:30 are members with the American Idea Association. 7:32 And then some of the other things that we saw with Vibe at the ViBe conference, that was a hit. 7:38 We had over 500 participants come and attend, some great speakers, a lot of experts in the industry talking about nutrition, 7:46 talking And we got a lot of requests of more of some of the marketing and then also business management side of IV industry. 7:56 So those are things that we're actively putting together a curriculum to offer a course to be able to get this out to the industry, 8:02 so. 8:03 Yeah, that's excellent. 8:04 And that really plays into our strategic plan that we've outlined now. 8:08 We haven't finalized, but we have outlined. 8:09 Now the third tier of that is building membership value, right? 8:13 It's it's difficult for professional organizations to continue to add value beyond that initial excitement and say, oh, wow, 8:22 OK, I get, you know, group purchasing discounts. 8:25 I can get some travel discounts, so I definitely get my money's worth from a free consultation with a health care attorney. 8:31 et cetera, right? 8:32 There's a lot of value there. 8:33 But once you utilize some of that as a member, which we're aware of, you start saying, okay, wait a second, I've got to pay X amount of dollars per month 8:40 for what? 8:41 And immediately, just to address that, the large majority of the membership dues, not a whole lot, but go towards the promotion of first initiative, 8:50 us as Ava, American IV Association, continuing to be the voice of the industry, which is not cheap. 8:57 It does cost money. 8:58 Facebook ads, Google ads. 9:00 LinkedIn ads promotional material, media days, et cetera, etc. 9:04 Cost money to do. 9:05 We've got that and we keep our overhead very low and respectable, but it's still there's costs to it, hard costs. 9:11 And then the third piece of that is to continue to enhance membership value. 9:15 Member value, as I was talking about, will build that out from a curriculum standpoint and continue focus on those initiatives as well. 9:23 Yeah, and David, I want to put some emphasis on what you're talking about of things are not cheap. 9:28 Us as the American ID Association, we're not here to just make money, right? 9:34 It's for us to be heard. 9:35 We have to able to spend money on certain platforms and things that They're not going to donate free ads on Facebook for us to get our message out there. 9:45 Obviously, the money has to come from somewhere. 9:47 That's all the dues that the founding members are putting in. 9:50 People have to understand, me as a chairman, I don't get paid to be the chairman. 9:54 I volunteer my time. 9:55 And as matter of fact, LiquiVida contributes X amount of dollars every single month to Ava. 10:01 And that's what coming together as an industry is all about, is us being able to not just contribute financially, but also contribute our time and basically 10:13 volunteer our to be able get the end result that we're looking for. 10:17 Oh, absolutely. 10:17 And that was the most exciting part of what I saw from a transformation of AVEN 2023 to Aven 2024 was once we integrated the Leadership Advisory Board 10:29 and we integrate the key leaders with regards to founding members and key vendors. 10:33 So that's that core inner circle group of AVA contributors of time, effort, energy, money, right? 10:40 We also mandated that one representative from each organization would serve on a committee. 10:46 So we built out this volunteer force and it's not tremendous amount of time to serve on a committee, but it's a couple hours a month away from their job
Standardization, Safety, and Data Initiatives 10:55 or away, from they're fun or way from there. 10:57 Family that individuals across the country have obligated themselves to in order to promote this mission. 11:04 And that was really fulfilling for me to see that we then empowered all these people. 11:09 One of the neat things about 2025 that were going to roll out is for 2024, we had those committee positions only filled by key vendors and founding members. 11:19 We've got such a good membership following and requests all year long for people to join members to joint committees that we're gonna We're going to roll 11:26 that out not unlimited But you know hey three members per committee or something like that to then build that force up better And that's and then have 11:34 a better presence and more production let's say from that committee because we do focus on deliverables and So that's an exciting thing that we're rolling 11:42 out in 2025 as well as some regional directors again volunteer But if anybody's licensed like both of us have been in our lives and the large majority 11:51 of eva members are either in some capacity they're familiar with professional organizations that have Volunteer leadership roles, 11:59 right and they take on different regions So we'll break the country up a little bit and break that out a bit more So We can get some more local kind of 12:07 grassroots and that'll allow us to have more boots on the ground nationwide And one thing that I heard a few times, David, 12:13 is people always asking, what kind of value am I gonna get out of the American Ivy Association? 12:19 And I want people to switch that mindset a little bit because this is about us coming together and creating the value for ourselves. 12:27 So when we talk about founding members and members of The American I.V. 12:30 Association, people have to start thinking of what kinda value do I bring to the table? 12:36 that other people can benefit that are in the industry as well, too. 12:40 And that's when we're talking about volunteer in our time and all that stuff. 12:44 That's what's important. 12:45 It's not about what you can just take out of Ava. 12:47 it's, what? 12:48 You can also give into AVA. 12:50 So I encourage anyone who's here at the media day or anyone. 12:56 Who's wondering what kind of value they're going to get out. 12:58 Of it is really think about how you could contribute into a bus or you. 13:02 Could be part of the collective team to make this change in. 13:05 The industry that we are looking for. 13:06 Yeah, absolutely. 13:07 Absolutely. 13:08 And that kind of does also lead to one or the other. 13:10 We have three key initiatives for 2025 from a strategic plan perspective outlined right now. 13:15 Not formalized from tactical perspective, but outlined, right? 13:20 The first one is continue to be the voice of the industry. 13:23 The third one that we talked about is enhance the membership value. 13:26 And the second one is continue to and really focus on promoting a safe and sustainable industry as a whole. 13:33 And we touched on that throughout this conversation today, but really to unpack that, that breaks down into accreditations, 13:40 it breaks into certifications, into training curriculums that we want to offer out there. 13:46 And it breaks down also into position statements by the scientific advisory board and initiatives to really take a proactive approach on the industry as 13:56 a whole, especially from a data perspective. 13:58 So one of the difficulties that we've seen and will continue to see is IV hydration is not necessarily a profession, it's a service. 14:06 And that service is being performed by multiple different professionals. 14:11 And so, for example, MDs, DOs DCs RNs APRNs PAs. 14:16 You've got a variety of different professionals that are really rolling this out.
Strategic Partnerships and Grassroots Growth 14:20 So it's been a challenge to standardize that care somehow because multiple people at multiple different levels of professional training are going into 14:30 this service line. 14:31 Our next initiative with the Scientific Advisory Board that'll take us through the next few months is really to standardized that intake And delivery, 14:40 not necessarily the curriculum of making the decisions of what to do with whom, but standardizing that intake and delivery so we can then aggregate that 14:49 data because it's all collected in the same way, including adverse effects and those types of things. 14:55 And then we do our own sort of internal studies off it. 14:58 It's been impossible to do that until now and it will be impossible until we roll this out. 15:04 And have that level of standardization, we can't aggregate that data because it's all different data and its done different ways. 15:09 So that's a really big initiative. 15:12 We're putting some time, effort, energy and money behind to get that set up and really roll that out for the public. 15:18 Which we would encourage anyone, even a non-Ava member, to use just to to just get the uniformity across the board. 15:26 Yep, yep, and I love that. 15:27 And another thing that I want to mention is we're getting a lot of great support from other people in the medical industry. 15:36 We got one of our sponsors, the Amspa. 15:40 Alex, a CEO, was supporting what we were doing. 15:43 They've noticed that in a MedSpa world, IV hydration has become a very serious topic. 15:49 People are inquiring about more information. 15:51 Our goal is to strategically work with the AMSPA and be able to provide a lot of the data, education of what people are looking for. 16:00 I think that speaks for itself. 16:02 AMSPA is a very reputable organization, an accredited organization where people go to get their CMEs. 16:08 And we're working strategically with the industry of medical spas to be to bring all the information about IV hydration to them. 16:17 Yeah, absolutely. 16:18 And Sam, as the chairman, are there other strategic relationships that you see the American IV Association going after in this next year of 2025? Yeah, 16:29 we do have a few other strategic relationships. 16:32 Some of the other ones that we're in talks with is also the A4M, which is the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, and then a view other, 16:39 the functional medicine space that focus a lot on IV nutrition. 16:43 And then also, The other one is we are working on the liquefied side with a hospital that's based out of New York that is looking to do some of these type 16:52 of studies and stuff on iv hydration. 16:55 So that where we gonna plug in Ava into the mix as well too. 16:59 Yeah, that's awesome and that super exciting. 17:01 And then from Ava's grassroots perspective, we're also looking as one of our initiatives to leverage the licensed clinicians in AVA that are associated 17:09 with ABA to really start to build better relationships with their state professional organization. 17:15 So for example, the American Nursing Association of Florida, right? 17:20 They already have lobbyists, and they already relationships with regulators, they have pre-existing structure of communication that we feel like we can 17:30 piggyback on because these are members of those organizations that are also a member of our organizations. 17:35 In line with that grassroots empowering the member to do as much as they can to get the value, that's really the way that equation works the best and will 17:47 as we go into 2024. Yeah. 17:49 Now I'm excited about that. 17:50 I think that 2025 is going to be a great year. 17:53 Oh, I know you said 2024, but 2025 it's going be. 17:57 And we got a lot of things in the works and we'll bring it. 18:00 It's the IV hydration space is just going. 18:02 To continue to grow. 18:03 Yeah, and every industry has its hiccups, like us coming together and doing what we're doing with all the different committees, 18:09 the scientific advisory board, that leadership advisory. 18:12 But you're going see a big effect globally, not just nationally with what. 18:17 We're. 18:17 Doing. 18:18 Absolutely. 18:18 you
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