Bearded Biomed

Dental Coming To AAMI Exchange & Common Misconceptions

• Chace Torres • Season 4 • Episode 17

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Big news lands at the Uptime Dental Summit: we’re bringing the Dental Summit into AAMI Exchange with a full-on dental pavilion, on-floor education, and a technical training space designed to grow into a robust dental track. Not just a bigger stage—this is a smarter way to connect dental servicing with HTM, where sterilization, imaging, PM, and patient safety already overlap every day.

We talk through why this matters now. Dental practices are consolidating, health systems are integrating dental care, and in-office tech like CBCT is changing decisions in real time. That means higher expectations for uptime, cybersecurity, and standards—and a clearer career path for biomeds who want to specialize. Vendors are ready, the community is eager, and the opportunity is huge: millions of devices across independent practices, plus equipment inside hospitals and federal systems.

We also clear up recurring misconceptions about AAMI. We’re a neutral convener across multiple verticals, not a lobbying shop for a single profession. That neutrality brings regulators, manufacturers, providers, and service pros to the same table to build consensus standards and practical guidance. Certifications update on a five-year cycle, add domains like cybersecurity as job tasks evolve, and CEUs are accessible through free webinars and collaborative programming with regional associations. Volunteers are the engine—we provide the platform: meeting space, studio access, collaboration tools, and an upcoming website with integrated feeds and document workflows so good ideas move faster.

Do you have a CBET, CHTM, CRES certification to maintain? Then check out Bearded Biomed University to watch select episodes of the show and get issued an ACI approved CEU certificate. https://www.beardedbiomed.com/beardedceus

The Ohm’s Law Foundation is dedicated to supporting the next generation of Biomedical Equipment Technicians through scholarships, certification support, mentorship, and outreach. You can get involved by making a direct donation, purchasing apparel, or reaching out to partner with us to support the HTM community. Check out our interactive maps of biomed colleges, apprenticeship programs, and HTM associations at https://ohmslawfoundation.org

A Special Thank You to Our Sponsors!
We deeply appreciate the support of our incredible sponsors, who are dedicated to empowering and creating opportunities for biomedical professionals striving to grow in their careers. Be sure to explore the links below to learn more about how they can help you take the next step in your journey.

🔹 College of Biomedical Equipment Technology – https://.cbet.edu
🔹 Uptime Health –  https://uptimehealth.com
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🔹 AAMI – https://www.aami.org

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SPEAKER_01:

Let's start the show.

SPEAKER_04:

Welcome to Bearded Biomed. Hey everybody, we're sitting down at I guess the first ever table talk Bearded Biomed. So we're at the the Dental Summit. So uh the Uptime Dental Summit. And if you don't know these people, please get out of your foxhole. Danielle, Robert, Pamela, I appreciate you sitting down with me. Um it's been a really cool conference. And uh, you know, just I think this is a good time to just kind of take it in and uh just talk about what's coming. There's a lot of really uh interesting conversations that I think we've all had over the over this weekend. So uh I think I'm always working on the couple of things. Let's start off with one of the big announcements that you guys just dropped.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we are super excited that starting next year in June of 2026 at the Amy Exchange, this event will be part of Amy Exchange. So a dental summit will now be at the Amy Exchange. We will have a dental pavilion on our expo floor. It'll we have room for about 30 dental vendors, whether that's manufacturers or servicers. And we'll also have a stage and theater there where we can have education. In long term, we want to create a dental track as part of our education, and we'll also be doing technical training for the dental community as well. So we're just beyond excited about this. I know my colleagues are as well. I mean, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, it's fantastic. We're doing this in partnership with M Time Health, obviously, which grew this uh conference to what it is, and they're uh uh platinum sponsor, whatever the right term is, for the next four years. So we're gonna be working together really closely. Um, and like you said, starting with the dental pavilion, we're gonna have a theater in the pavilion. So there'll be education there. There's also gonna be a technical training area, so we'll have a room for that. Uh and then over time, we hope it does become a full track within Amy Exchange focused on the dental services.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, and it's just so exciting because there's so many synergies there, right? You think of the sterile, we have a sterilization area as well. There's a lot of sterility in dental servicing and in dental um care. So I feel like with Amy, it's just such a it's just such a natural place for this to land because there's so much overlap between the dental servicing community along with the biomed community because dental servicing is a subset or a specialty within biomed. So we're just so so excited.

SPEAKER_02:

I will say that while Danielle and Robert were keynoting this morning and the QA occurred, I knew that A B was the right place for the members of this conference. They were had so many ideas of where they wanted to raise the bar across the dental.

SPEAKER_04:

Immediately went the standards. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, a lot of the ideas there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, match made in heaven. Yeah, and somebody made a point over the weekend too that dental and HTM have been segmented for far too long, even though, again, there's so much synergy and cross-way, you know, collaboration already occurring. And the way healthcare is going too, there might be more dental practices joining hospital systems as is. There are already.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

But the the future's already there, the the foresight and the vision of where that could lead to. And I mean, as a bio med, I I don't like the idea of leaving any sector of HTM segmented to begin with. Everybody should have the same access to resources, training, education, and of course standardization across their sector, you know, specialty.

SPEAKER_01:

Amen, Chase. I think that's exactly why we did this. Like, Amy is a convener. We bring people together, and I think you said it so well. I mean, we don't want to leave any specialty or subset of our community out. Because at the end of the day, we're all there to help patient care. We work on equipment through corrective and preventative maintenance and through so many other areas of health care too, even thinking of sterilization. So it's just so natural, and we need to make sure that everyone is included. And like you said, everyone has access, access to resources, access to standards, because at the end of the day, that affects care and patient throughput, and that's what we're here for.

SPEAKER_02:

That path to the patient, the members here can actually enhance the solutions that are out there relative to that education. They have so many ideas, and it was coming out this morning. It was beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_04:

That's cool too. If you if you can also look on the forefront, and let's say we're able to get more clinicians, more dentists involved, and there's literally a congregation of every facet of healthcare from the technician to the people providing the patient care. And then, you know, what discussions could come from that where you walk into an Amy exchange and you could literally tackle issues overnight and put a plan together with every individual from different sectors of healthcare. It's kind of cool, you know. It's wicked cool, yeah. You got Amy already, you see imaging, you see sterilization. Now there's gonna be a dental area.

SPEAKER_00:

So we saw interest in the broader HTM community already when Janesh uh keynoted last year at Amy Exchange. I mean, the room was very paying very close attention to what he was laying out about the growth in the opportunity, you know, how how you know dental care impacts health. It's all tied together, and so the interest to me, what I'm excited about, is from both sides. This is not just folks on the dental side and the dental specialty saying, yeah, it makes sense to be a larger part of the HDM community, it goes both ways. Folks that are in sort of mainline health care are pretty interested in dental as well.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's that cross-pollination, right? Because when you think about it, we're at a deficit of people, and I know I say these stats all the time. People say, Oh, Danielle comes out with this scary information, but it's so true, right? And when you think about it from that perspective, the dental folks now have access to all the other biomeds and technicians that will be there, right? So there's like this um connection point, and then on the other end, for the other biomeds that are there and technicians, now they have access to a pathway that they might not even know about. Like they could go into dental specialty, and when we think of recruiting, you know, it really helps both ways because now you have a bigger group of people to pull from and that cross-pollination.

SPEAKER_00:

And we I've been sort of sharing the story that I've been sharing about, you know, I only just discovered my dentist had a CT scan, CT machine in the office a year ago.

SPEAKER_01:

You gotta tell it, it's too good.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, I was going in for a root canal. The x-rays were kind of inconclusive, but the dentist said you have to have a you know, a root canal, and then when I got there, he got cold feet. He said, Maybe you don't have to have a root canal. And I said, Well, which is it? He said, Let well, I think you need a CT scan. Well, I thought he was talking about going down to the hospital, you know. And I was like, Are you crazy? Just not just do the root canal. I'd rather that's a weight, you know, to get the CT scan. Of course, walked in, they had the unit in the office, which I wasn't even aware of, and uh didn't have to have a root canal. So I love that machine. I absolutely love that that capability is in the office now. And uh, so you're seeing dentistry get more and more sophisticated. And and in addition, you know, we all know that um in many cases dental outcomes will drive larger health care outcomes as well. Yeah, and so it's just it's amazing to see these leaps and bounds that are happening, and like you talked about with the merger, you know, first of all, dental practices are getting bigger. There's fewer independents, they're merging into larger and larger delivery organizations. Then you see integrated health systems starting to bring those dental practices in. I would assume that's only going to introduce even more technology, more capabilities, or at least more flow back and forth between the two. And so it's a good time to be doing this, I think.

SPEAKER_04:

It's uh you never know. What we could we could be down the line and you know you go in for your yearly checkup, and then they're like, all right, go down the hall and get get your tooth, do your teeth, do your teeth at the same time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and there's a lot of ties to oral care to the rest of the rest of your you know, body. You know, they found that a lot of the plaque you find in between your teeth is the same plaque you find in your heart. You know, it's it's you know, good dental care starts with good health care. And you know, people that don't have good oral care, there can be negative, negative implications of that, and that all comes back to having access and working equipment to be able to detect that and make sure that people's teeth are taken care of the way they should be.

SPEAKER_04:

Absolutely. And I I think you guys also you met a couple of the individuals today. There's biomeds already that have gone into.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I've met two or three of them that started and made the job.

SPEAKER_04:

They've they've put years into it already, they're running their own businesses to great career. They've started their own companies too, which is very, very exciting. Yeah. So this this isn't something new. We're just opening the pathways and the you know, the information to everyone else that maybe didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. And you see for the established servicing companies, uh, some some of whom are here that are maybe at the medium size of the market, you know, you grow, you grow, you grow, and then there's this whole other opportunity. I don't remember what the stat was on how many independent dentist office there are. That's a lot of potential customers, actually, for those businesses.

SPEAKER_01:

And it comes out to over five, like if you roughly assume that there's five bays in each, it comes out to roughly like five million individual medical devices between all of those two. And that doesn't count the dental that's inside hospitals or the VA and places like that.

SPEAKER_02:

I will say that the exhibitors have been commenting too that they're excited. They're so excited to Amy's uh vendor floor in Denver. So that'll be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Actually, I think that's a very we said, did you say it was in Denver? I don't remember. It's in Denver's here, yeah. We need to make sure.

SPEAKER_01:

May 29th through June 3rd. Yeah. We'll be there at the convention center downtown. And it's really interesting too because when you announce like a merger, you you never know how people are gonna feel about that. You know, there's always that chance with like, well, we love our small homegrown conference, but the reaction was the complete opposite. I mean, it has been met with enthusiasm, the amount of people we talked to today, the people that even came up to you and me at lunch while we were eating. I mean, it's it's just they've been welcoming it with open arms and are very, very excited. And many vendors came up to Robert and me and said, you know, we're ready to book our tables. So our booth is not tables. Sarah would be upset if I call it a table. So it's a booth. Okay.

SPEAKER_04:

Caveat on that. Booths typically do have a table located. There is a table in the booth.

SPEAKER_01:

We're talking semantic substantial. Yes, I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's a big show for folks that haven't been to Exchange. I don't remember how many square feet the expo floor is, but it's over 60,000 square feet for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Over 170 vendors will be expanding it with dental, 3,000 people that attend, nine tracks. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot, and a lot of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And there'll be a dental pavilion area.

SPEAKER_04:

The dental pavilion will be usually after I experience an Amy exchange, I gotta have like an unwinding for at least a week. Right, right. We all do.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, and I'd have to say, just the seg just the segue really quick, unrelated to dental. When you talk about the size and the magnitude of our show, like to me, it feels like magic. Like we show up and you kind, you know, the floor, by the time we get there, the floor is like somewhat built, it's going up, everything is on the city. What's that about?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm sorry. Go ahead with go ahead with your voice. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I have been friends. Um lose my train of thought. But no, so like you show up and you know it's partially built out, right? And then you walk into that opening, all the vendors are there. And then, you know, the next day, because we all have to stay afterwards, you walk back by there and there's nothing. It's just, and you're like, holy cow, like we just had this amazing event with thousands of people and this amazing floor. It's almost like a wedding, you know, like you know, there's all this builds up to it, and then all of a sudden it's done. But it's just so miraculous how it comes together, and then in an instant, you know, like the amount of work and all the teams that we have that work behind the scenes to make that all come to life. Like, I totally I call it magic every year that we're there.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep, it's pretty cool. This will be the first time I get to go to Colorado too. So it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_01:

You will love it.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I hope it's gonna be a week and wine in Colorado.

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say, bring a lot of water.

SPEAKER_04:

And then I need y'all to issue me an oxygen tank.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there we go. There you go. Well, it's true, and people have an A and B there.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how many months out are we? You've got time to train the train. Altitude training. Yeah, I didn't think of it, though. Now I'm worried. I hope I don't pass out on like the live show. That would be awful.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll just revive you on it or be reacting. Maybe we get a lot of views though.

SPEAKER_04:

Maybe I should try and pass out on the live show. If you gotta take a siesta on the A5, you can jump in. There you go. So I I wanted to give you guys a shameless plug too, because I know you just recently launched your own podcast. So you're officially podcasters now. We are, we are.

SPEAKER_01:

I really hope that we can live up to the bearded Biomed that we make you proud.

SPEAKER_00:

So you have a beautiful setup though. We're we're still tweaking, we're still working out the kinks in terms of the all the little things, like you talk about the magic of the show. Like you have a beautiful logo and all that kind of stuff. And we did our first one, we didn't even have our logo yet. No, not yet. We have the fluted wall though.

SPEAKER_01:

Wait till you see the fluted wall. It's really good.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we redid the wall, we got that done. But it's it's gonna be great. Yeah. What are we doing four times a year?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we well, it's three times in studio, and then the fourth one is at exchange. Okay, so yeah, well, so yeah, we're gonna start quarterly, see how what the engagement that we get. You know, we we're both very busy, so to try to do it like monthly might be a lot, but we'll start quarterly and see how it goes. Hopefully, we don't get into a fight and you know not want to do it together anymore. You know, we like break up live on air. Share the name. Share the name. Oh, yes, it's called From Basement to Bedside.

SPEAKER_00:

There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

So obviously it needs no explanation.

SPEAKER_00:

And we've got a sterilization podcast that's been out for a while now, focusing on that community. It's doing really well.

SPEAKER_01:

Really well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm gonna give you some advice from podcaster and podcast. I'll take it. We'll take anything.

SPEAKER_01:

Let us let's go.

SPEAKER_04:

So consistency is everything. So just make sure you follow the schedule you lay out for yourself. Yep, yeah. You don't want to disappear off the face of the earth for six months and then show back up.

SPEAKER_01:

We would never.

SPEAKER_04:

And audio is always more important than video. Yeah. Boy, isn't that true?

SPEAKER_01:

That is true. That's always the same.

SPEAKER_04:

If I can't hear you, then it doesn't matter how good it is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's really true.

SPEAKER_00:

That is very true, very true. And that it's gotten a lot easier now. A lot better than it used to be audio. So, yeah, the better mics, better AI. We haven't even talked about it. When is AI gonna make the scene in dentistry? I assume soon. I don't know whether it'll be. Okay, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

It's already built up. One of the technicians we are talking to too says, you know, he uses AI a lot from his phone that when they get an error code on a device that they've never seen before, you can put it in, it can help identify and quickly look things up.

SPEAKER_03:

So there you go.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, and uh, we are gonna have, and I invited Chase to be on our show at Exchange to talk about rural health.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_01:

So isn't that gonna be a great conversation? Give a love Alan worry out of the way.

SPEAKER_04:

Me and Al are are trying to put together a presentation so we can do that there. Okay. Rural health is important.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean my entire career has basically been taking care of rural health. So in Texas, that means a lot of hours in the car. Yes, a lot of driving in the city.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's funny, you said the same thing we were just talking before. I'm like in Massachusetts, you probably have like one or two we're all hospitals because it's like it's rare that you're an hour from a city if that, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So um it's always shocking to people how far it is between cities and Texas. Yeah, four or five hours in some places, or most. I mean, if you do the Dallas, Austin, well, you have Buckeys, right? Well, we have Buckeys, that's right. That'll get you there. At least you could stop.

SPEAKER_01:

So and fun fact at my trip for VBA, myself and my colleagues stopped at Bucky's because he talks about it non-stop, like it's going out of style. And um, I had never even seen one before, so we stopped there and experienced the Bucky's experience. What do you think of it?

SPEAKER_04:

I I've lived in Texas my whole life, so the glamour is kind of worn off.

SPEAKER_00:

Starting to wear off 200 200 gas pumps don't impress you anymore.

SPEAKER_04:

They have nice restrooms.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, that was their whole thing. Yeah, so Bucky started in my hometown. That's our claim to fame where I grew up in Lake Jackson, Texas. Bucky's came from there and uh it started out very small. But yeah, when I was coming up, there was a sign every 25 miles the cleanest bathrooms in Texas. So that's how they got their start.

SPEAKER_01:

And last year we were in uh an A an annual operating plan meeting. Rob in the middle of the meeting, I learned Robert's looking at his phone and he goes, There's a Buckeyes coming to Virginia, and I look at him, I'm like, what is that? Like, what are you doing? Why are you excited about this?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you guys have what Wawa?

SPEAKER_01:

No, excuse me. That that's Jersey. That's very different than Massachusetts. We don't really have anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, see, there you go.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

They want him to take wahwa and then. Dunkin' donuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Duncan. This has nothing to do with me. We gotta get back on dragon.

SPEAKER_04:

I have three of the prominent Amy folks sitting right next to me. Yes. So thank you for saying that. We've done if it's true. Well, I hell so we got a Pamela sitting right next to the next one. One for sure. So I I think it's also a good opportunity to um, you know, if I could put it plainly, what are some misconceptions that I think people have about Amy that maybe you guys could help clarify? You know, because I'm I'm in the bombing world. And there's let me jump in on this one. Let's see if what I'm gonna say is what you would decide.

SPEAKER_01:

Probably is.

SPEAKER_04:

I think I think there's there's some things that you you guys probably attuned to what your mission is, how it's aligned, and just to clarify for folks.

SPEAKER_03:

Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

I think uh what I was gonna say, and we'll see if it's what you were gonna say. Uh we are not a professional membership organization in the sense that many associations are, right? They're the professional home for a particular career field, uh, they're there to serve, and and the the distinction is we're certainly there to serve and help develop folks and HTML and all the other areas that we serve. But the difference is just that. We're serving many communities, not just one. Um, and the the other thing those professional membership organizations do that we don't is advocacy. So we don't have a lobbying arm, we don't go out and advocate on behalf of the profession in terms of policy or governance or things of that sort. Now, where it affects patient safety, where there might be an opportunity to promote the use of standards to raise guidelines that make sense for the industry, we do that. But that's probably the biggest misconception is when folks, and it's not specific to HTM. When folks come from one of our communities, they don't necessarily see all the work that we're doing for the other communities and they don't understand that intersection. And so that can sometimes create some frustration because that's not what we do, right? And uh what we what we are really there to do is to promote the safe and effective use of health technology. It's our mission statement, and we live and breathe it every day. And that involves all of these different stakeholder communities, and sometimes, frankly, their interests collide or their perspectives collide. That's what makes our job fun, is we have to figure a way forward even when they do. Find the path that's best for the patient, best for the clinical outcome. So I think that's probably the most important things for folk thing for me, for folks to understand, is we're not that professional membership organization in that way. Now, career development, all the other things you do promoting the field. Absolutely. But there's some lines there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that neutral convener kind of role is a very powerful one that we actually do for those engaged in AIME leverage, because frankly, there's things that we can get done that if we were actually doing the lobbying, we would not be able to.

SPEAKER_04:

There's certain entities and organizations that will not do business or work with organizations that aren't right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's how we get the FDA involved, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Hospital Association. They come to us and you know, we have almost power and leverage because of our neutral position. And we can bring people together and get people in rooms that wouldn't normally go into rooms together. And you know, I do want to say you basically did kind of say what I was gonna say. I wasn't gonna say it in the exact way of that. So we are not an HTM organization, right? We are Amy, we have three verticals industry and emerging tech, serialization, and HTML. And before I started working at Amy, I only saw Amy as an HTM association because I only knew of Amy about the conference. Most people call it Amy, where you know, in the old school folks in the field will still call our conference Amy. But and I've had people come up to me in the field after speaking at these events, like, wow, I thought all Amy did was a conference once a year. So I think it is just you know, you become myopic in the sense that the only way you engage is the only way you think it exists. And we do so much more than that. So yeah, we're not an HTM association, so when the advocacy comes up, you know, we have a broad constituency that we work with. We can't just advocate for one side of an argument, but what we can do is bring people together. The second um misconception that I get a lot is around certification. I feel like it's constant re-education. So one thing that I always hear is your certifications are outdated, they're never updated, which is absolutely not true. We're required to update our certifications every five years at a minimum.

SPEAKER_04:

And the CBET, you were part of that, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And yeah, the CBET and C res, there's a brand new test coming out this fall because of that. So we do update them every five years. Last five years ago, when we did it, we added a cybersecurity section. So when people say it's updated, that is outdated, that's absolutely not true. We look at them every five years. We look at the job task analysis to ensure what we're testing folks on aligns with the job duties of the profession. The other thing I often hear is there's no way to get CEUs. I let my certification labs, there's no opportunity for CEUs. So building bearded universities around. That is right. We have a new partnership that we should talk about. Don't you like that segue, Chase? I set that up really well, right? Um so um, so yeah, so there are so many ways to get free CEUs. You don't need to go to a fancy service school if you're hospital or employer has no budget. I just want to make sure everyone knows you can get all the CEUs you need for free without leaving your house. There's lots of free webinar series like through Amy, Tech Nation, OR today. If worse comes to worst, you can watch 30 webinars and you you don't have to leave your house and it's free. We also have a new partnership with you, Beard in University. You want to talk about that? I feel like I'm interviewing you now.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm so sorry I flipped it, but um so we've we've we've been working on building a relationship for a while. Yes. And you know, no relationships built overnight. You know, there has to be reputation, trust built, and along with all that. And at this point, like I said, my whole point of the podcast is advocacy, awareness, education, and talking through topics that can benefit the next generation or even the current generation. So while I don't have every single episode on there, I have select episodes on there that is directly going to give you information to either possibly find a job or how to navigate uh recruiting. You know, things of that nature that can be beneficial to biomeds. We're also, I've had multiple conversations with a lot of OEMs and uh training uh companies that are going to provide me technical training on first look, PM repairs of medical devices on there, too, that they are going to be working alongside with me to provide that function. So as a biomed, I want, and I hear this a lot too with CEUs. Well, we want more, you know, getting into the weeds with equipment. Well, that's coming. Um, so that's one part of that too. And I also want to speak to both things that you guys said. Um, I I would like to say that most people would at this point, hopefully they see me as an advocate for biomed, but uh otherwise I might as well just hang it up.

SPEAKER_03:

You're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, doing a great the the consensus that I have a lot I go to many conferences, I go to many HTMA events, I I I am embedded and entrenched in every way and facet form of communication with biomedics. And for some reason I feel like there is a an unfair conversation that everybody expects Amy to solve everything. And one, you guys are not set up for that. That's that's not what everything that you said, that's not the mission of it, and you have many other verticals. But when I talk about you know, if you are a true advocate or you are wanting things to be solved within the HDM community, you can do stuff as well. Everything that I've built or I've worked on up to this point, I took that charge. And now here we are almost five years into when I started everything. We have multiple children's books, we have multiple podcasts, we have so many other avenues that weren't available out there because people are taking the initiative to drive their local communities or you know, do their part. Right. So for the folks that I I this this is just something that I always say, if if you want to see change, you have to put your own, yeah, your own part into it. Right. Um, it's not of one size fits all, everybody has to contribute in their own way, and some can solve things that others can't. I know there's some things that I'll never be able to tackle an issue for HTM, but I have certain ideas and certain projects in mind that I'm constantly working on, like the foundation I started, that can address certain things. So instead of alienating or saying that somebody should do everything, we need as a field to look as a collaborative, you know, collaboration and partnership and every way. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

And you just radiate it, right? Leaders find problems but also identify solutions. You just don't identify a problem and leave it. And I feel like you just magnify that so, so well in everything that you do. You know, part of I feel like it's a professional privilege to be in this job, in this field, to work with so many people. And part of what I find so enlightening is finding people like you out there that just grind and get it done and just want to help for the greater good without any kind of recognition. You know, I think we all do it silently. We're not looking for awards, we're not looking for any of that, right? We're just doing it because it's the right thing to do. We want to leave the field a little bit better than we found it, and we want to make a difference. And hopefully our impact perpetuates, you know. Um, we were saying, you know, even like promoting the field, and you do so much of that through Ollie the Biomed, your book that my daughter loves, by the way. We read it often together, and you know, it's so interesting because you know, being engineers and being technicians, we want things that are measurable. And when we go out and promote the field, we talk to children, we put these books out there, we make HTM in the box, for instance, all the work we've done together. You really can't measure that, right? Someone, a five-year-old could read your book today, and you'll never know if they go into the field. It's kind of like we're doing it for the greater good, and we may never know the outcome of this, but that's okay because that's making an impact, and I feel like you're such a huge part of that impact, and I just hope that you realize that. And like, I think on behalf of everyone at Amy, we love our relationship with you and everything that you do.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's so many other people that are doing it too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, no, no, yes, I know. I but figure here.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to come back to the point you're making when when people can be critical, and it's like this might be another misconception. I think, you know, I think some people think that Amy or Amy's staff go in a closed room and develop standards or develop certifications. We're the language we use internally, we don't use it externally often, but as Amy as platform or Amy as a service, we're an enabler, we're a convener. We we we develop constantly invest it heavily in the capabilities that we provide, but we do that so that folks like you and other folks in the profession can use those capabilities to drive whatever change you're trying to produce. So when you're taking a certification, that's not something Danielle wrote the exam. That's something that went through multiple iterations of experts and multiple passes, and that's what we do as a platform, right? We have very rigorous ANSI, we follow ANSI guidelines.

SPEAKER_04:

I've said in those emails with the veteran. Right, so many artists, so many biomass through. That process that you guys vet that through.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it's yes, and it's not. So if you look at it and you go, well, this is wrong. Well, really? Those 30, 40, 50, by the time it's done, 60 very experienced.

SPEAKER_01:

Folks are wrong. We do is consensus. So like when we rewrote the test and the job task analysis to update it, it went out for public comments. Every BNET in the world had the option to comment on that if they wanted to. So it's not like we're going to be able to do that. We read everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

We react to everyone and put it in front of those explosions.

SPEAKER_01:

And in certification, too, if we go back to that, is governed by a board of volunteers. Sherry and I have nothing to do with it. If you appeal your certification for some reason, if you lost it or you failed the test, Sherry and I never see that. It is a board because it's a conflict of interest, you know? It is awkward if you lost your certification and you write me a letter and I have to, you know. So it's it we do it that way, so it's neutral, it's governed by a separate board. It doesn't go up through Pamela or Robert or our Amy board. There's a separate certification board. So it's very, and that's how all certification is run to keep it fair. So there's just a lot, you know, I feel like certification brings out a lot of emotion in folks, you know. Well, it shows they take it very seriously.

SPEAKER_02:

There's one other thing I'd like to build on, and it kind of um builds on both of your comments, Robert. As far as the communities, Amy is really leaning into strategic initiatives for more of a platform, more tools for communities. Uh, we recognize that that lion's share of information is coming across all of our volunteers. And in that instance, you're gonna find in the coming year there are strategic initiatives we're investing in so that there'll be more tools available to the communities to leverage that actually feed into our website so you can have those tools at your disposal as well as have things surface where they're of high interest into major feeds within our main page. So stay tuned and please get engaged because I think you're gonna be excited by that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. We're gonna have a whole new website here soon, and uh it's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. Pretty cool. So one of the challenges we face is so much. There's with all the verticals, all the activities, standard education. You're saying healthcare is big.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, and I mean we're trying to cover all of healthcare in a way.

SPEAKER_02:

And uh good way to describe it.

SPEAKER_00:

We're embedding in our homepage an integrated feed from across all of the activities across Amy. So literally, like a social media site, sort of. You can just come in and check the feed and see everything that's happening at Amy, and you'll be able to filter it by your interest area and do other things, search it. But we're trying to get to that one-stop shop for folks so they don't have to spend however much time searching the Amy website for what they need. The key point's gonna be right there in the feed.

SPEAKER_02:

So and for those community initiatives and programs, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, especially around document collaboration. We have a highly bespoke uh document collaboration engine software that our standards team used, and it's it's super specific to getting things through ANSI, getting things through ISO. But we're actually taking that platform, stripping out some of the standards pieces that don't need to be there when you're just producing a white paper. But you still want to have the same collaborative environment, you still want to be able to put it out to the community for comment, all those kinds of things. We're gonna lead those in, so we're gonna make that available to our communities, including our HTM community. And we should talk a little bit about the way those two communities are organized now, or at least the main community. But that'll be at their disposal to create documents and all those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01:

Just one point of clarification. When Robert says ISO, it's international standards organization. I know in HTM we use ISO for independent service organizations. Just to be clear, when we're talking about standards, when we say ISO, we're talking about international standards organizations. 13485. 13485. Yeah, now good. Good job. There you go.

SPEAKER_00:

So talk about talk about the new approach with the HTML uh group.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we have two uh communities right now within Amy under HTM, the HTM Advisory Alliance. They're like a strategic advisory, I don't want to call them a board, but an alliance that come together and help me kind of set strategy. Obviously, we have a strategic plan, but within that, you know, they're bringing forward challenges of suggestions for new projects, um, and just things Amy can do to better help and support the field. And the best part about it is the community runs itself. So if they see a problem and they bring forward a solution, they work on that solution. And Amy gives them the tools to empower them to do that. So, you know, whether it's conference space, if they say, hey, we need to create a meeting to bring people together to talk about medical device servicing. We have our Amy Center of Excellence, we can fit up to 300 people, they're welcome to use that gratis, right? And then um maybe they want to put out, you know, a video about something. We have a studio, they can use our resources because they're part of the Amy family. Um, and there's a multitude of other things. Education, reference, shocking me. You know, well, you know, they can write a white paper. We have the marketing and comms team that can edit it, put it together. So we have a lot of resources behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_04:

Y'all also brought all the HTMAs together too. That's the second community.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, the HTM Association Collaborative once a month. That's run by Ryan Gonzalez. He's phenomenal too. I mean, what a leader in the field. Um, you know, this was really his baby. He brought it up at Amy one year and he said, well, let's make it an Amy community. He rallied a bunch of people and they meet monthly to talk about the challenges that HTM associations face, you know, being small nonprofits and you know, rallying communities together to really make these successful. And they also help, you know, new communities start up, and we have a monthly webinar series with that too. Each webinar is worth one CEU. Um, each month a different regional HTM association takes lead, so they find the speakers. But again, we make all the social media images, we promote it, we handle the registration, we do the back end of Zoom, so we we take that away. But they said, hey, and the point of that, which I loved, was there are a lot of areas in the country that aren't covered by a regional HTM association. So these folks aren't getting opportunities to get out there and network or get education and see you. So our thought process was, well, let's bring education everywhere through we're not creating one society, but like you know, bringing all these associations together to really help everyone get forward. That's a great idea.

SPEAKER_04:

I've sat through several of those webinars, and the cool part is you have uh individual HTMAs, like I said, they pick out their own vendors. The last one I sat on was for IV pumps. Yeah, and it was very insightful. They got somebody that that's that's their subject matter.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And like I said, you're you're you can learn about the HTMA, but you're also getting technical know-how as well. And you get CEU from it. So it's a win-win. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love the cute names you guys come up with. It was like something like Sipson with the IV pumps. What was it?

SPEAKER_04:

I don't I don't remember seeing it. And we're editing great now.

SPEAKER_01:

Now it's gotta go into the sniff and then I'll pull it up after. You gotta crop this section out because it's totally- I thought it was gonna be. Oh, it's going in.

SPEAKER_04:

I stayed long enough to get my certificate and left.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, I mean it's just the group, the communities, the way they're being organized, the tools we're putting at their disposal, and you mentioned the ACE, you know, hosting in-person meetings, we have virtual meeting capability, we have the studio, we have a training capability, certifications longer cycle, and we don't build certifications lightly, but we're looking at a couple of new ones in this space right now based on member and stakeholder feedback, and so all of these tools are there. So to you, I love the point you made. If you see a problem or an issue and you're willing to show the leadership around it, then come forward, let us know what it is. We don't say yes to everything, but we say that yes to most things, yeah, and we try and support them as best we can, and all these tools are at your disposal.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll give an example of a gap that was identified during lunch. We were talking about expert insights and how someone can take their knowledge base and share it with the broader community, and there's a lot of excitement in the dental space that we're hiding here to be able to provide education. Those kind of education opportunities.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think one other point to make is we live off of volunteers. Like we cannot do everything we do, like we've put out like 30 different HTM resource documents in the past seven years that I've been doing.

SPEAKER_00:

And translated some of them to what, nine languages? In nine different languages.

SPEAKER_01:

Our HTM benchmarking guide has just been translated into nine different languages so we can be able to get it across the world. But we can't do that without volunteers. The people that did first pass at that, we found you know HTM professionals in different countries willing to translate that. Um, and just all the other documents, you know, it's the ideas of the field that you know we make them come to life and we help them, but it's all the volunteers, and I could not do my job. This vertical would not be successful without all of the volunteers that show up every day on top of their regular nine to five jobs, or even more than that. So, you know, for me, I just want to say how grateful I am of the support that I've had from the broader community for the past seven years because we've done a lot of work, and um, we I couldn't have done it without all of you.

SPEAKER_04:

So Robert made a good point earlier today, too, that this is not a short process. It can take years. For standards, yes. Yeah, for I mean, in general, too. I mean, any anything you're trying to build a movement or solve an issue, more often than not, I think people want to have that double message. They want to have immediate satisfaction or reach that goal that you know they they seem to mind as attainable. But more often than not, especially larger issues within our community, it's a miracle. Right. It's it's showing up when you need to show up, it's it's putting in the book when you don't feel like doing it. Yeah, it's having those meetings or those discussions with folks or reaching out to people and communities you've never had. So there's there's there's so much on the back end involved with that that you know, I I will say from at least my standpoint, you know, the the partnerships, the networking, the the relationships that I've built over the years, a lot of those started because me being a part of the Amy exchange.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's good to hear.

SPEAKER_00:

It takes a long time, but the impact is generational. You think you know, Amy's been around 55 years and we're standing on the shoulders of all the people that came before us, and and they've solved a lot of problems that we take for granted now and that make healthcare safer every day. Every day, no matter what, whether it's mainline healthcare, dental, whatever it is. And the problems we're working on now will raise the bar just that much higher for a generation. And and there's also the other reason these things take time is this pretty high-stakes business, right? We don't want to get things wrong. It's worth taking the time to get things right because we we have been preceded by this huge group of people that have done all this great work for many decades. You don't change those things lightly, you don't move quickly. Sometimes you have to move quickly, things emerge, things happen, pandemics happen, etc. But we want to carefully and methodically keep raising the bar year after year after year. And you know, we've been around 55 years. I assume Amy will be around another 55 years, long after I'm not involved in it, or any of us. And I hope they I just hope they look back at what we did and say that we tackled the challenges of the day and got to the next level because there's some crazy stuff coming down the pipe in emerging tech, whether it's AI, whether it's more robotics, autonomy, and devices. You know, we're talking about instead of a, you know, today a device that that injects any substance into your body, the device is approved with the compound that it's intended as an insulin. We could be in a future where we have a device that can inject any compound into your body as needed, any pharmaceutical product. And maybe it's also got onboard sensors, and so it's actually uh maybe autonomously making, not current state, I'm not proposing, but autonomously making decisions about that. And uh so these are radical changes in the way healthcare is going to be delivered, and we're the generation that gets to figure out how to make that work. That's kind of cool. It's fun, but we gotta get it right.

SPEAKER_02:

It's fun, but the stakes are high.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they are high, indeed. Indeed. So we talked about a lot. That's right. Do we want to talk about any more gas stations or are we done with that?

SPEAKER_01:

And it was it was pumps and pints. That was what it was. Okay. Well, pumps and pints.

SPEAKER_00:

Pumps and pints.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, get it. So it's like a social event and you're talking about a pump.

SPEAKER_00:

I get it. Educational. You guys are kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Kind of I didn't come up with it. It's the tax ones.

SPEAKER_04:

So I I guess to put a cap on it, if there's anything that you could lead this episode with or that you'd want to put a pen at the end of this discussion, what would you leave the audience with? You want to go first?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I think I think you need to find your why and leave your legacy in HTM when we talk about all of this, or Amy in general, but you know, we have the ability to make such an impact as individual citizens in our in our fields, and our reach is broader than we think. And I think it's really just getting out there and making a difference. I always say, you know, when I give my keynotes, if every single one of us went out and gave one presentation about the field, think of how many more people we would reach. It's really just not talking about it, but doing, and then you know, getting out there and being a leader. So if I could motivate anyone to do anything, it's really just a sit back, find your why, and when you're long gone, how do you want to be remembered and what do you want people to say about you?

SPEAKER_00:

I like that. That's pretty good. I almost hate to try and add to that. I would say do one thing. So Amy can be daunting to people. There's so much going on, it's big, there's lots of activities, but pick one thing. Probably the best way to get just immersed uh in Amy is to come to Amy Exchange, but that's not possible for everyone. So watch the live stream that we do from Amy Exchange would be a way to learn a little bit more about it. Or if you can't do that, come you know, participate in a podcast, participate in the many things you guys do online. Just find one thing and try it. And then you can try another thing and another thing. But you don't have to show up knowing where you're gonna fit in the angel. I've been here seven years and I think I've only just figured it out now how I fit, and I'm on staff, so it's it's daunting, but just pick one thing and do it.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll offer that you actually covered what I was thinking relative to the legacy because they all have that capability. But if you think of the legacy and recognizing one thing, take it at a step at a time. I just want you to know that Amy's there to support you. And when in doubt relative to resources, reach out to us because if we don't currently offer it, we're looking for new ways to support that why, that legacy, and make a difference. And we appreciate all of you.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, so that maybe that made me think of my one thing. I'm gonna need to make it more. No, I no, I'm gonna I'm riffing now. I'm riffing, I'm gonna laugh. So the one thing she said reach out, just reach out to Danielle. And the way to do that, the way to do that, if you're not following Danielle McGee on LinkedIn right now, go find Danielle McGee and follow her on LinkedIn. That's easy, everyone can do that. It's a perfect first step. So follow Danielle.

SPEAKER_04:

But if you're in the HDM community, for the love of God, get a LinkedIn. I tell people all the time, you don't have to post on there all the time, but information's being shared there, networking's being shared there, recruiting jobs, training with there's so much that we share on that platform. You should have a LinkedIn. Newer generation, current generation, if you're retired, well, that's up to you.

SPEAKER_00:

But yes. It'd be like being in the financial services and not reading the Wall Street Journal every day. You just don't do it. You need to be plugged into the internet.

SPEAKER_04:

We don't we don't choose where we get our information from all the time, you know. The community as a whole, that's where a lot of the information is going. Yes, there's backdoor channels, but the the foresight, the upfront in your face information for the HDM community is on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's a great, great resource. Yeah. Absolutely. I I would cap this off uh because I everything you guys said on point, but uh I'll just leave it with the motto of my foundation. It's be the current, amplify potential, build the future. I like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Love it.

SPEAKER_04:

That's all great. Appreciate you guys tuning in. You know, be be sure to uh reach out if you ever need any resources as always. May the beard be with you.

SPEAKER_03:

Bye.

Contributor

Chace Torres

Host