I would add to this discussion that I love most of the changes made to v6 of AC with regard to entering immunizations. It's really easy to enter immunizations, and multiple immunizations at a single visit. V5 had a silly omission that was a big deal--when we printed out a kid's immunization history, our letterhead was not included, so the printout looked like a spreadsheet made at home. It's WAY better than a couple of the other systems I have used. A mild gripe on this specific issue is that they have done a nice job of incorporating most of the current guidelines. BUT the guidelines change very frequently. I was just notified that we will be giving HPV to boys. In the last 6 months or so, a second meningitis vaccine has been added. Locally, there's a mumps outbreak, so there might be a local recommendation for a 3rd MMR. It would be great to be able to edit some of the rules.
I have found the WHO charts especially helpful for some babies, but my experience suggests that growth charts are an important big-picture perspective. Is there clinical significance to consistent growth at the 40th percentile vs. 60th percentile? I will always be vigilant with a child losing multiple percentiles over months. If they are failing to thrive on the CDC charts, will they look fine on the WHO charts? So it would be great to choose this charting on AC for younger kids, but it's not a crucial issue for me.
In general, I love AC. There are NO alternatives that are easier to learn or maintain. The Centricity practice I used to work with employed 2 full-time IT people, and still they needed 'service' visits from Centricity tech people very frequently. Just because we all want it to be better, and have features that would make it more useful, the cost/value ratio is very high.
