First off let me say that I'm a big advocate of Amazing Charts and feel that Jon has made tremendous strides towards providing physicians with an inexpensive, easy to use EMR.
Unfortunately, the switch to SQL seems to have overwhelmed the company's ability to provide timely technical support. Since the new version adds a layer of complexity to the installation and troubleshooting, no doubt the demands place on Jon's tech support group have risen exponentially. I decided to upgrade to version 4 recently, figuring that by now the bugs would have more or less been beaten into submission. While I could easily have done the upgrade myself, having paid for tech support I chose to have them do it remotely. It took multiple calls + messages left to finally get someone to schedule an appointment. In fact no one even replied to the initial message as of five days after it was left. On the day of the upgrade, the appointment time came and went without a call from tech support. I waited patiently, but eventually gave up and called. And called. And called. When I finally reached a live human she promised to look into the issue and I was eventually connected with a (very helpful) tech who did the install. (They said they were "just about to call [me]".)
The next day was a disaster, as the other EMR we have in our office was unavailable (server upgrade), so we were to use Amazing Charts exclusively that day. My receptionist logged in to her Windows screen and promptly found Amazing Charts spontaneously attempting to reinstall itself repeatedly, resulting in multiple error messages. Between 8:30 and noon, 4 messages were left with Amazing Charts requesting help for our unusable installation. We were stuck without a chart system, unresponsive tech support, and were not amused.
Eventually at around 1 p.m. I finally reached a tech who reinstalled some DLL files, which seemed to get the program functioning again. Unfortunately, every second or third time I try to print a patient instruction handout, the program crashes. Sometimes it closes Amazing Charts completely, sometimes I am just taken back to the print screen again. The time wasted restarting the program is making Amazing Charts pretty much unusable in our office. The custom signature in the patient instructions also is not printing, even though it shows up onscreen in the letter. Multiple messages were left all day on October 15, 2009 and no one has thus far bothered to call us back.
A suggestion to Jon: if your tech support department is overwhelmed, please hire more people. Also, you really need to at least provide users with a prompt response indicating when you can schedule time to help them. Ignoring a physician's request for help resolving a buggy installation is not acceptable, given the setting in which this software is being used.
For several years I have recommended Amazing Charts to any colleague that was looking for a simple, reliable EMR, but given the apparent problems that are ongoing with technical support being overwhelmed, I can no longer vouch for the software at this point in time. It's really a shame - Jon has done a good job with the program, but unsupported medical software simply cannot be trusted in a busy medical clinic. The time wasted and frustration caused by loss of a charting system nullifies the advantages of low cost and simplicity offered by Amazing Charts.
If anyone reading speaks to Jon directly please let him know that lack of adequate tech support will drag the company down.
