I found the following info on AC's website:
Q. What can Amazing Charts bring to Pri-Med?
Physician level needs assessment ? Amazing Charts will give Pri-Med the ability to deliver individualized continuing education that is based on practice patterns identified through information users provide from their EHR.
Point of Care ? In addition to its live meetings and online CME courses, Pri-Med will now be able to provide education and information support to clinicians and patients at the point of care during a visit. The best way to do that is through an EHR system.
Practice relationships ? Amazing Charts allows Pri-Med to broaden and deepen CME offerings based on de-identified patient and practice data gleaned from an EHR.
So, it sounds like AC will be providing "de-identified patient and practice data gleaned from an EHR" to Pri-Med. The purpose of this appears to be so that Pri-Med can "provide education and information support to clinicians and patients at the point of care during a visit." Sounds like marketing to me. I would be very concerned if AC becomes a marketing tool. This sounds suspiciously like the route Practice Fusion took.
As a physician I feel it is very important that we insulate ourselves (as much as possible) from undue marketing influence. Our focus should be on care of the patient and on doing what is best for the patient--not the drug companies and others. Perhaps I am naive to think that anything in medicine is free of marketing but I don't allow drug reps in my office and would not want them paying to influence my EMR.
What do others think about this?
It remains to be seen what comes about, but I remember back in the day when certain enterprise software companies started having their software "phone home" and pass along data. Network security folks saw this traffic, deemed it a security risk, and thus began the securing of outbound traffic.
So, should this happen, I suspect that we will have a brisk business blocking that outbound traffic for practices. In classic Spy vs. Spy fashion, lawyers can try to change the use license to allow them to "send the data home", and then Doctors can counter with refusing the changed use license and any related 'upgrades'.
AC would be wise to actively engage their clients in a straightforward fashion before they might try such things. This community is not the sort to be treated like sheep.
