AVA's Founder - Suzanne Herbst

It is with great sadness that we share the news of AVA’s Founder, Suzanne Herbst’s passing on July 1, 2023. Suzanne established AVA in 1985 in the San Francisco Bay area where she was a home infusion clinician caring for patients and friends with AIDS. She realized that healthcare institutions and clinicians’ knowledge of vascular access and vascular access devices varied widely. Important issues such as consumer education, care and maintenance procedures, catheter-related complications and their management were rife with incomplete and inconsistent information. In June of 1985, Herbst sent a letter to 12 colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area where she proposed the development of a multidisciplinary network to address the complexities of VADs and their insertion, use, care, and maintenance. Issues ranging from research and development of VADs, to educating the health care community, to informing the patient community were on her agenda. Her focus was on the best possible outcomes for infusion therapy and on excellence in the new specialty of vascular access. During that first meeting it was unanimously agreed to develop a committee which was eventually called the Bay Area Vascular Access Committee (BAVAC). Its primary goal was to establish a collaborative effort through standardization of education, training, and research and development that would benefit consumers and healthcare professionals alike.

Because of her courage to bring together a multidisciplinary approach to the specialty of vascular access, AVA has grown to more than 4000 members who are committed to the mission to advance the global practice of vascular access, through awareness, advocacy, and education to improve healthcare outcomes.

We have been informed that there will be a memorial service in late August, and we will share more information as it becomes available to us. AVA will be paying tribute to Suzanne in Portland, Oregon, during the Annual Scientific Meeting, October 14-17, 2023.

Suzanne’s family has requested donations can be made to the AVA Foundation in memory of her by clicking here.