Eyeworld

SPRING 2025 | EYEWORLD | 47 by Liz Hillman Editorial Co-Director ASOA listens, curating conference to meet today's member needs About the sources Jennifer Gallihugh ASOA Group Director Abigail Markward, MBA ASOA Executive Director Tiffany Perlberg ASOA Meeting Program Manager Attendees of the 2024 ASOA Annual Meeting in Boston. Many areas of the 2025 ASOA Annual Meeting have been significantly influenced by attendee and member feedback. Source: ASCRS continued on page 48 W hen ASOA members and attend- ees of the ASOA Annual Meeting provide feedback, the leading U.S. society for ophthalmic practice administrators listens. There are many areas at the 2025 ASOA Annual Meeting that have been significantly influenced by attendee and member feedback. Take keynote speaker Joe Mull. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he's making his third visit to the ASOA Annual Meeting. Mr. Mull is a nationally recognized expert in the area of employee engagement. He is bringing his new talk, "Employalty: How to Ignite Com- mitment and Keep Top Talent in the New Age of Work," to the meeting's Saturday General Ses- sion. In this talk, Mr. Mull will dispel the myths that may hinder hiring, and he'll share three factors that help determine whether a candidate will "join your organization, stay long term, and commit to doing great work," according to ASOA's description. "Joe is a fan favorite. We have people who still talk about when they saw him [at the 2018 ASOA Annual Meeting] in Washington, D.C. for the first time 7 years ago. Any chance that we can bring someone back who we know, who people trust, and who knows our audience to add that extra personal touch to it, we think would be beneficial," said Tiffany Perlberg. The topic of employee loyalty speaks to the theme of listening to what ASOA attendees want. "One thing we hear about all the time is hiring and retention—'we can't get people; we can't get people to stay.' Retention is such a huge issue that comes up year after year. I think having him focus on that in his talk will be ben- eficial for everyone," Ms. Perlberg said. In addition to the range of Courses, Roundtables, and networking opportunities that ASOA attendees can expect Friday through Monday, another major new feature of the meeting takes place Friday afternoon. It's a new program called Aii: Adoption. Integration. Implementation. Abigail Markward, MBA, said the idea for this program came out of the ASOA Board meet- ing where Patti Barkey, COE, and Carrie Jacobs, COE, OCS, felt strongly that practices come to ASOA because the society is the leader in adopting, integrating, and implementing from a business standpoint. "We felt we needed to do something specific on this front to educate our members on how to be the expert, regardless of career stage, in successfully onboarding and integrating new technologies, services, drugs, or what have you," Ms. Markward said. The program will be case study based, providing blueprints for success tailored to each practice's unique needs. "Along with the whole theme of listening to our members, I think what we hear is that when it comes to adoption, integration, and imple- mentation of new technologies, some practices find success here but not here. Why did it work with this product this offering, and why didn't it work here?" said Jennifer Gallihugh. "With Aii, we're setting the stage to be like a blueprint. What are those best practices? What can you learn from these case studies to make sure that every integration is successful? We're taking the guesswork out of why something works versus why something doesn't." Also new this year are Friday morning ASOA Feature Sessions. A range of sessions that were curated by the ASOA Annual Meeting

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