Thank you, Kevin. Now Dr. Storm, I know people have been asking some questions. So Dr. Storm is going to moderate the Q&A session to hopefully answer any questions that you have. So feel free to put your questions in the question and answer box. That way we won't, in the chat box, they tend to scroll. So we might miss some. So if you put them in the Q&A box, we'll definitely capture them. And then after that, after your general questions, I'll go ahead and explain the next steps in terms of group membership or individual membership and accessing the ASGE Endoscopy Technician Training Program in our platform. Thanks, Michelle. First question, Dr. Raju, one of my techs had actually reached out and asked, what's the next step for the tech training curriculum at ASGE? And will there be any ongoing content development? Or is this as good as it's going to get? I think we created the platform that is probably basic. When we started, we thought that, OK, can we come up with a program that will help basic general GI endoscopy, that is, EGD colonoscopies, and a little bit of ERCP. That means stones, strictures, and stents, and USFNA. And cover the emergency GI call coverage. So those are the things we thought that, OK, we start with. You know that given what all you are doing and others are doing at the cutting edge, we need to go to the next level and then come up with, hey, what are the requirements? Come up with a curriculum and then build that. That area is not that difficult to do after learning what does it take to go through the steps. I think that is something we should do to help. Somebody else has asked, you know, how do I learn more? I want to make a pitch that is the VideoGIE has excellent material. It is an open access journal. Anybody can access. And if you go from the beginning years of VideoGIE, you will probably see a lot of material that you will find it useful in your practice. Now most of it is going to be either, you know, Therapeutic US leaning more towards Therapeutic US and bariatrics. But if somebody wants to learn a little more less complex procedures, they should go to the earlier years. Yeah, I would have to agree with you. The VideoGIE, for folks who don't know, open access, just meaning you can, from home, you can log on and watch these videos for free. Really neat techniques. I saw one recently, a former colleague had published on how to place two wires into the bile duct using a cytology brush catheter, for example. So sometimes really practical, everyday advanced endoscopy assistant techniques. Not just some of the weird esoteric cutting edge, you know, test device things, but some really practical kind of thought provoking and potentially practice changing little tips and tricks through the VideoGIE. That's a wonderful suggestion. That was a theme throughout some of the questions. So Kevin, the endoscopy technician training program, how much is it? And this is kind of a complicated question. But if you take it from the role of ASGE, maybe then I'll take it from the role of, you know, at an institution. So if someone has no support of their physician practice, let's say, but they're incredibly motivated, they want to do this training program through the ASGE. Do you know what that looks like for someone who wants to pursue associate membership on their own? Yeah, Michelle, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's $150 for three years. And if you are a member, you have access to the program. Correct. Yes, that's correct. And I know we've gotten a lot of questions, which I was going to kind of detail a little bit at the end, but we can definitely go over it now. So it is free, but it's free to members. And you can obtain membership through ASGE several ways. Group membership is really when the entire unit or practice are ASGE members. And how you become a group member is that your physicians would be members. They would pay to be members. Once they establish group membership for all the GI physicians, then the entire GI team gets complimentary ASGE membership, the GI techs, the APPs, the nurses, the practice administrators. And so anyone who has membership, even complimentary, you can access this program through GI LEAP. If you are not a part of a group member program or if your unit is not or practice is not applying for group membership, then you can simply join on your own. And as a GI tech, the membership is an associate membership, and it's only $150 over a three-year period. So once you pay that $150, you get access to the entire program for free because it's free to you. And we think that that is a great benefit as a member. If you're a nurse member, I think Alyssa is online. She can tell me how much it is. Nurses and practice administrators have yearly memberships. But again, once you become an ASGE member, in addition to all the other wonderful benefits you receive, this program is free to you. I want to make a comment here. So I want to thank my chief, that was my previous chief, Dr. Minhaj Shafi. So we have 25 faculty members, out of which a majority were members. About three or four faculty were not members. And we as a group joined, where she took the initiative and paid for those three faculty members from her funds, so that it helped the entire endoscopy technician pool, almost 40 technicians and then 40 nurses. They all got access to this learning opportunity on ASGE. So let me suggest something. Nudge your endoscopist to join as a group. It's a huge benefit. It will be helpful to their practice, having trained and knowledgeable, and also people who feel more confident about doing things will help their practice. Just nudge them. And if they give you a little bit of resistance, take my name. Say that Raju said to nudge you, please help, all right? That's the best thing, you know, everybody benefits and you all will benefit. I was going to offer the same advice. I think if someone came asking me for an opportunity to learn more as one of the physician leaders in the practice, I would do anything possible, particularly for something as robust as the ASGE program. So we're fortunate also to be moving forward with the group membership opportunity. Someone in the audience did ask, can an ASC practice, for example, join as a group? Absolutely. So any private practice, any small group practice, the entire gamut, any group of physicians with their technician and nursing team can join as a group. I have to say my APPs in our practice and even the fellows in my practice have benefited from the tech training program. For those of you who work in advanced endoscopy, you know that the fellows come to that room and they have no idea what a lot of the equipment is and how to use it. And so it's been a great benefit to them as well to have access to this training. I think we have an important question. Can you receive full certification? And I think this is where there's a little bit of a nomenclature issue that I'll let Dr. Raju explain. But can I receive full certification from the ASGE website or do I have to attend the Houston Community College program? This is someone who lives in California and is ideally looking for an online training program. What do you say, Dr. Raju? All right. I'll explain this. So this is going to be what is called the prior learning assessment pathway for the Houston Community College. The community college has to follow certain rules and regulations before they give any certificate. So for prior learning assessment pathway, you can go to the, if you have four years of experience in endoscopy and your nurse manager and your endoscopy director says that you can do certain procedures, EGDs, colons, basic USCRCP, then you can go and take the test, that ASGE test. That will be part of your $150 payment for membership. You can take the test as part of that membership. That will give you, I think, 60 or 70% of 35 credit hours. That not give you, that will make you eligible for that. You know that the cost of a community college, if you are a Houston local, is about, I think, about $3,000. If you're out of state, it's about probably $5,000 or $6,000, if I recall correctly. But if you do the prior learning assessment, take the test from the ASGE and you get 75% plus scoring, you'll get a certificate that you have passed that certification of completion. Then you register for the Houston Community College. And also can get, I think, 60 or 70% of the credits by paying a small fee, almost like probably less than $25 per courses. For about maybe less than $200, you'll get about 18 or 19 credit hours. Following that, you can actually do the required courses required by the community college to complete the remaining credit hours. So that by completing 35 credit hours, you will achieve a, the community college will give you a Level 2 certificate. Why is that important? Once you get Level 2 certificate from Houston Community College, community college credits can be moved from one college to another college. And these are college credits. You can actually go to associate degree with specialization in endoscopy technology. Actually, community college in Houston has actually developed that pathway as well. That means you have to add another 30 credit hours. Currently, two of my technicians are going to graduate this year after finishing the Level 2 certificate with associate degree. And with specialization in endoscopy technology. So by 65 credit hours, you'll get that total. Where does it lead next? That means you can actually go further up and go to bachelor's degree with specialization in healthcare management. Or maybe you can actually even plan and say, hey, I want to go and do a BSN. So these credit hours can be transferred. And one reason why we felt that we should create this pathway. We all want to grow, right? Everybody wants to grow professionally. And for endoscopy technicians, I felt that they had no pathway. And now there's a pathway for growth, professional growth. And you may think, hey, it's going to take a long time. and before you think five years will be gone and you may be even able to even get a bachelor's degree and the Community College Dean Dr. Jeff Grykar and the director for endoscopy tech program Miss Melissa Bruton they are actually going to be at the AAC learning center at the DDW and you can actually go to their website I actually put the Houston Community College website and may be able to even email them to see if you're interested in pursuing that pathway I hope I made it clear I think this is a great opportunity for people to grow and as they grow they can actually take up leadership positions in the endoscopy unit as endoscopy units expand I want to share with you 20 million endoscopies are done per year just in the United States think about that and it's going to grow thanks dr. Raju Michelle a quick question from the audience I think important to answer what's the cost of a group membership so that would vary that is a good question I will have my contact information at the end of this and you or you can contact the membership department Alyssa and I I made membership at ASG org it varies it depends on the number of it of physicians that you have the goal of group membership is to have all of your physicians become ASG members and then the GI team can you know become members for free so it varies depending upon the number of members you have I'll add you know if you have a very practical group of physicians that are potentially looking to save money the per physician rate if they're joining independently is discounted at it within a group rate so if you have 10 physicians that are all joining independently the group rate will actually be a discount for them so they'll actually pay less to then have access for all of their staff I think a really important point for everyone to realize as well so this is where again it does not hurt to ask your physician team someone from the group asked how if we're a staff at a small community hospital with no employed GI physicians how can we get access to this program I think I first and easiest pathway as dr. as you had mentioned was approach those physicians who are working with you ask if they are a SGE members and if they would be willing in their private practice that works at your small community hospital perhaps or their group practice would they be willing to do a discounted group rate and then include you among their fat their staff when they list you with the ASGE as being among their staff then you'll have access to this program as well that would be probably the simplest way to approach that situation one thing I want to just stress what dr. strong has mentioned cheaper for a group membership we actually from that yeah it's cheaper it's not that big of a deal to just do it as a group membership everybody benefits the practice benefits the hospital benefits the quality of care for patients will benefit another question have nurses taken this I know in my own practice LPNs licensed practical nurses absolutely are a part of our AEA program many of them that still remained in our in our advanced endoscopy suites did this training they also increased our salary we were able to meet a salary range that was a that was essentially on par with our registered nurses for our techs for advanced endoscopy assistants coming from a technician role or an LPN role and so and then and then again a PPS so some of our a PPS and registered nurses our nurse practitioners have all done this training as well and have found it very valuable to understand what we're doing and how we're using equipment in the endoscopy suite if there's another question if we were to implement an ASGE certification for our techs how do you recommend a hands-on skill be developed so Dr. Raju for you know a group who maybe wants to do this ASGE program maybe finish out with Houston Community College for certification how do you how do you go about with all this virtual learning how do you go about the hands-on side of things I think that is something that we need to figure out how to do this and there is some discussion happening whether one is you learn why you're doing whatever you're doing and then you want to learn how to do that and that how to can be done working with industry partners that is something right you know whenever we have some new device you know who is coming and helping us industry partners are coming and training they're more than happy to come and help we actually have gone through a 12-week program where we everybody had a lesson planned for 12 weeks and then they had a pre-test and then practice test after every week so that they were able to get up to speed and then we did about six or seven boot camps where people actually a senior tech or an endoscopist or an industry personnel came worked as a group to refine the skills that are needed for certain people right not everybody needs every skill need to brush up every skill but if you say hey I need to brush up this skill we set up those boot camps we felt that when we did that 12-week program our whole group actually felt happy first of all that they knew what they were doing and also the room operation becomes much better right you know you're not just depending on one person there's another person who is also a backup trying to help so that as a group we actually did better. Michelle are we out of time or should I keep it rolling? Maybe one more question as some of them are pretty similar but maybe one or two more before we wrap it up. Absolutely so I know I can answer for our practice and in our state but I'm curious for Dr. Aju and if the ASG team has any thoughts on this as well but any pushback state-by-state law or regulation regarding an endoscopy technician performing the removal of a tissue or polyp does this program in any way protect those people who are doing these procedural maneuvers? This gets a little bit into the law of medicine and who is ultimately responsible I think for these procedures. I don't know the legality of it but the way I look at it is the scope is in my hand and I am actually making things happen similar to a surgeon right. So a surgeon is assisted by a surgical tech and it's happening under the surgeon's supervision whatever it is. We didn't have you know we do EMRs, we do ESDs, we do all the procedures that you can think of. We didn't have any issue with that. At the end of the day it's the endoscopist who is responsible for what happens in the operating field. Agreed that's my impression here in Minnesota as well. Outside of gross negligence if anyone in the room you know were to harm a patient intentionally I think you know that's that's a different offense but when it comes to the actual performance of the procedure, the outcome of the procedure, any complications of the procedure those are entirely owned by the physician doing the procedure. That said that physician is going to do better if you're well trained and you understand what you're helping them with and so I think it's great that our teams have taken such responsibility and want to do this training and want to develop into their role and career but ultimately it would be my opinion that the you know the physician in the room takes the full responsibility for that polyp removal procedure for example and so protection through a training program for example isn't necessary. Can I make a request at the end of this recording, Michelle and Kevin, if we can actually if somebody is looking at it it will be easy for them what to do next if they want to get into the ASGA either as an individual member whom should they send an email and also if they want their endoscopist join as a group member whom should they contact I think those two emails should be there to make it easy for everybody. We have that information coming up Dr. Raju. Yeah okay that's good. Dr. Raju appropriately and no surprise anticipated I think some of the remaining most important questions which included contact information for how I reach out to get more information the steps to achieve the certification you know how can I receive that information will it be sent out or listed somewhere and so I'll pass it to Michelle to close for all of us. Thank you. Thank you Andy. Thanks Dr. Storm and thanks Dr. Raju and Kevin. Really great webinar on this on this program this exciting program so again whether you're an administrator or an individual interested in the educational resource we're excited to be part of your educational journey and again as we reiterate I want to reiterate that the program is free to group members and ASG members whether you are a technician nurse administrator or your practice or group member can access the program through GI leap and receive a certificate of completion once you've completed the program I think someone asked how long is the program and I think it's a it's the slide there says it's 40 hours but it is on demand and then you do have to take you cannot ask so but if you're currently a member some of you may be current members you just need to log into GI leap and download the technician education bundle which you'll see there and again free to free to members if you're not a member and are interested in membership you can go to our ASG website asg.org slash join and complete your information and when you're granted your initial provisional membership you can access the program in GI leap right away if your unit of practice is interested in group membership this program will be complimentary to your team I think we said that before and I have some contact information on the last slide about contacting membership if you're interested in group member ship we are happy to contact you have a call that's what we usually do and talk to either the practice administrator or you even as an individual if you're interested to learn more about it if you have questions once you visited our website so I'm Michelle acres membership area and we have our email their group membership at ASG org you can go straight to GI leap and check out some of our resources if you're currently a member at learn dot ASG org and if you have an account with us but cannot access it you can contact us as well so I will be sending out some follow-up to this this webinar will be is request been recorded and will be available in GI leap whether you're a member or not and I'll send out the information to that in about a week or so along with the slide presentations I know someone asked about that as well well I think that concludes our webinar I want to thank everybody who took the time out this evening to learn more about the program I want to thank dr. storm dr. Raju of course in Kevin for taking their time out ahead of DDW to present on this I hope this is really answers some of your questions and if you have time so please fill out the feedback survey I posted it a couple of times in there I'll post it again this will be helpful for us for future educational events that we do and if you have any questions again feel free to reach out to me in the membership area about this program that concludes our call have a great evening

ASGE Endoscopy Technician Training

VideoGIE learning resource

group membership benefits

Houston Community College certification

endoscopy technician roles

GI Leap platform