I ran the first part of this by Vinny before posting it. Then I caught a good creative wave and finished it. It's a bit lengthy, but I think it's pretty good. Thanks for listening....
Vinny,
I want to thank you for taking a positive, open to suggestions and active role on this. And please thank Jon for the same when you speak with him. In the words of donkey, "really, really".
On the other end of this, I believe I speak for almost everyone when I say; we want AC and Jon to be well protected too. AC's continued success is in all of our mutual self-interests. I know that I have been a bit of a thorn here on this topic, and I don't want to be such an irritant. So after one or two basic posts I'm going to step aside for a couple of days and let a few others have the floor.
As I’ve sort of hinted at in the past, we user when we use AC or other similar products create a "shared" intellectual property when we use such tools. This property is shared between the doctor and the patient. And we all know the laws and regs. that we must all comply with under such things as HIPAA, including the continued access to records for various reasons. Somehow while protecting both the vendor and the end users, putting in something about continued use and continued access to the program, and continued access to renewals and updates (at appropriate free market rates for both AC's and our sakes) would be very nice.
Many users I've spoken with have avoided the other programs like the virtual, ASP, internet only model EMR's and PM's because the only way to continue to use and access one's records and intellectual property is to be forever on that vendor's taximeter even if you do need or want to move on. Worse yet, what happens if you wake up one day to find that your ASP vendor has gone belly up??? All your data and charts are created and accessible in a program you do not own or have access to! What a potential horror story. Personally, I’m just waiting for a few of these to hit the newspaper. Watch out.
This is very much in AC's favor! It is one of a number of strong reasons that attracted many of us to AC in the first place. We were buying the rights to the program that we could use and no ASP type situation could take it away from us and therefore neither could our access to our valued charts and other data. So perhaps something more like buying a program like an Excel, Word, QuickBooks and the like as examples. And on AC's side of such things, yes perhaps after a few versions and/or years, they have every right to not to support very old versions. QuickBooks certainly does this and every other year and version we have always updated to stay current. Just as we intend to continue to re-up with Jon and AC for the long haul. Also, we truly like be part of and supporting the underdog in such situations. Go AC!
And as stated in other threads just about all of us are more than glad to regularly re-up as our renewal comes about. Goodness knows that Jon and the folks at AC with such interesting updates and improvements to the program have earned each and every dime of it. Personally we would be glad to give some more if they felt it was needed.
And please do also find wording to protect Jon and AC from bad and needless litigation that I think we would all agree is something we are all opposed to. Personally I do understand the desire and need for protection from old, not up to date lists of Med's and Codes coming back to haunt the company. I'm not sure that the two ideas raised here are in conflict, and I'm hopeful that both goals can be achieved together.
Here is how I think most folks would agree the situation really lays out. The program AC is Jon’s intellectual property and he has all the rights in the world to defend it, the company and himself from real harm. But picture this: Jon created AC using a number of MS based softwares and we all depend on him now to maintain, provide and improve on his software for our daily use in our offices for all the things we depend on it to do for us. I know that AC is quite woven into the fabric of our lives here at Village Medical and I gather it is too at most of the other offices that use it. Unless Jon or some other developer was to commit some truly awful sins against the state (MS) his access to use those tools he purchased should never be restricted or denied. Too many people like us now depend on him.
So now part two: Those of us who now use all sorts of software such as AC as tools to create, maintain, preserve and continue to compile our intellectual property need to be considered and protected in a similar fashion as folks like Jon do. Without the original program that our data (in this case charts) was originally compiled and designed in they become just about useless to us and our patients. Furthermore, this intellectual property is not ours alone; but instead we share it in an on going basis with our patients. It is really their medical records that we have created and now must maintain and preserve for both the provider and the patient. So some how, we must find a way to strike a healthy balance between both of these parties needs and protections. Again, thanks for a really great product. Goodness knows where we’d be without it.
And in closing let me say that I think it is rather big of Jon and Vinny to open this thing up. This is not just an AC issue, but instead it is an issue that will continue to need to be worked on all over the virtual world, but especially in fields such as medicine. Many different software vendors, and not just in medicine are creating, virtual only, ASP model products, or products that are only on a subscription basis. We are probably treading where few have yet to tread and again my sincere praises to AC for being the conduit for such debate. But I think that this is our place, because we in science, academia and medicine tend to think ahead about these types of thorny and ethical issues that surround our trade, protect those that need protecting, and that we are very intolerant of infringing upon another’s intellectual property and ideas. We are the defenders of such things and we are proud of that and we should be. We should always strive to have a zero tolerance policy for such things as plagiarism or harm to another’s intellectual property. Be it in standard written formats of books, journal articles and research, virtual format such as software or in music and the arts.
Developers like Jon need protection for themselves and their intellectual property so they can feel comfortable to bring their products to market, so such useful products can and will be developed for all our mutual benefits. End users who use such great tools like AC, who then design and build our own intellectual property in such products also need similar protections, especially in fields such as medicine. Let’s do this together for all our mutual benefits. If conducted in a positive and cooperative spirit as I see taking form here, I think it can be done. Have a great night and be well.
