Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Toward action on wishes/needs/pleas in wish list

Good morning fellow Americans.

A modest proposal: or something less:

What if some kind of ad-hoc group from these user boards took a proposal to J.B. suggesting we; maybe two or three hundred users, would be willing to pony up x$, maybe four or five hundred bucks to finance a one time project to fix chronic headaches like the letter writer etc. Maybe consensus could be reached on a short list.

We ask Jonathan to A)Respond as to interest or no interest and B) If interested, which "Wishes" could he deliver in say 6 months for maybe somewhere between $50k and $100K. Or how much to do what?

If making AC into more the emr you wish it was saved you the sheer frustration and angst I hear in all these posts,it would be priceless. What's your time worth? If it saved you only $10 a week it would pay back in a year.

With some serious folding money in hand, Jon might be able to hire a couple of contract programmers to dedicate to the project or write the spec and sub it out to a software developer under a performance contract. He gets a stronger, more attractive product to sell and build on, we get what we need in a timely fashion.

So what if everyone wont contribute, We only need enough to float the boat, and the cost/benefit numbers still work out well in the favor of the contributors. I'll put up the first $500 if it helps.

What say ye folks?

I think that's a reasonable idea Mario.

It doesn't seem to have gained much of a responce from the masses.

Maybe a lower dollar amount would help.

I agree that the idea is good, in theory. I think the response from users might be very positive. The problem though was addressed by Jonathan Bertman back in November:

"I certainly understand that when an issue comes up day after day in practice, and you can clearly see a solution that would solve it, you can barely wait to see it instituted.... I guess... we’ve grown to the point that there are literally thousands of requests from users and they take time to implement...And unfortunately, throwing programmers at the problem doesn’t work (I’ve tried this)... So I am not confident that just having a larger development team means that the added features will actually be usable....I guess the question is, can you wait and trust that we’ll get there on our own?"
Jon


At that point, he made a commitment to keeping users more informed about development plans. (The full post is here" http://www.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/17164/Re_Pre_Purchase_Questions#Post17164).

So add me to the list of those who would chip in to such a "development" fund, but I am not sure if it can/will happen. And of course, coming to a consensus among users of priority improvements could be "interesting" to say the least.

Count me in for $500.

Plus let everyone else download the "enhanced" version for a 30 day trial, and then pay up if they wish to keep it. Tried and true method of shareware.

Of course, roll the improvement into the new version when it appears.

I agree, but when the same issue comes up again and again and again, such as the letter writer and how documents are saved, etc., they could and should be looked at.

When a new update or upgrade comes out, it is helpful to have user feedback even if there are far too many. I will say that there may be thousands by emails, but there are nowhere near thousands on the userboard.

And, the constant inertia of moving forward to such things as PM software is a philosphy (good or bad) that is in direct opposition to fixing the little or even big headaches that exist in the current software.

Jon,

Thanks for pointing me to Jonathan Bertman's Nov. post.

I follow and agree with him and those who followed. AC and J.B. are one. Selling a piece would corrupt the creation and benefit no one.

He did; however, say he had at least considered and rejected selling equity to capitalize a dedicated development team. Maybe the dedicated development team would be attractive if it was more of a quid pro quo.We put up cash, he puts a crew on he top 5 or 10 top issues voted by the contributors.

I think Jon tried to politely tell people he will do what he can, but after all the input, griping, etc - he needs to be the captain of the ship and make the decisions he thinks are best. Although this idea has merit another user brought it up in the past and I do not think Jon is interested right now.

I have talked with him and his lead programmer - they understand the letter writer has issues and they will work on when they can. I think the addition of last note meds and current med list was nice - it shows he listens and does what he can.

The letter writer is horrible.

There.

I admit that I use the letter writer all the time for letters to patients, med lists, admit orders, etc - I do think it is an awful word processor, but for basic letters it is at least as good and better than dictating a letter. It just only does very basic letter writing.

I did talk to one of the lead programmers and he at least made a note and said he would work on some basic improvements when he has time - specifically I talked to him about saving in a different format, ability to reprint letters and then broached the subject of fonts, etc.