There is a basic piece of business and marketing that isn't being said here. Well, actually Leslie kind of says it. That is "Know your nitch." Others may use the quote "Stick to the knitting." The issue here is knowing what you are good at, what you are not so good at, or what does not play to your strenghts, and stick to those things that play to your strenghts. There may be some occassions where you have to go outside of it, but you really want to emphasize your strengths.
I think what Leslie fears about AC is the same as what I fear...that they may have forgotten this tenet. They are trying to compete directly with the likes of Centricity(?) or other big-named EMRs. But we also have to allow for what may be necessary for AC to do (some way) even if it isn't currently their strength (PM Module maybe, other bells and whistles.) just to be a viable platform.
Now alot of things have been rushed into AC by MU & CHITT. Those are things that AC had to have to remain viable. I also feel that an integrated PM module is needed for them to remain competitve even in the small practice nitch. Whether they make it from the ground up, buy someone else, whatever. Unfortunately, due to what I have seen of the integrated EMR/PM systems, I don't feel confident that the PM will be that great. I would of course prefer to be so wrong I am dubbed the village idiot. But it seems that either you end up with a good EMR and so-so PM that is at least integrated to it, or a good PM and so-so EMR. And AC has the good EMR already. Additionally, so many things were added to AC so quickly, and seem not to work or work well (Orders, or even the risk factors/health maintenace sections.) And Jon and his team need to understand that the presentation of the medical information can be as important and the ability to record it. So we need to be able to print out a decent-looking vaccination record (We still can't as of 6.0.9, but I don't know about 10 yet.) We need a consistent and set way to record PPDs...and print it out to give to patients for their jobs/schools without us entering it twice, or having it come out with a lot of other undesired information. Plus there is all the the myriad things that had to be added and need to work well just for MU. 'Cause if AC wasn't MU qualified, it would be needing to plan on shutting down. But I think I really understand Leslie's point. Maybe it just seems that AC is losing focus because there is suddenly so much that must be done in too short a time period. I sure hope so and hope that Leslie is wrong. But she might not be.
