Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Welcome from ACUC

Alright Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to launch ACUC 2011.

The Biltmore is a fabulous hotel in the genre of the early 20th Century (pre Depression). There was a full Buffet Breakfast which was tasty although somewhat crowded in the room (lot of tables and chairs, not a lot of space.)

We have a full house. Jon is setting up the podium and will be starting shortly.

The support desk is probably not manned at this moment, the entire staff of AC made an entrance and then left.

It is up to 4500 practices, and currently at 46 employees.

AC philosophy - Kind Capitalism
1. It has to be affordable.
2. It has to be usable.
3. The company has to be fair.

So I guess now is not the time to call and ask an "urgent" question about why AC ran slowly yesterday? Oh well...

So Wendell, does this mean you will be blogging the whole conference? Those of us who cannot attend will be all-ears for the highlights.

regional account manager........
Very interesting.

There are an equal amount of beginner, intermediate and advanced intermediate users. We have 309 users here

More consistent communication
regular status updates, facebook, twitter
Regional Account Managers are beginning to come in place

More Educational Opportunities
Redesigned website
Live training Sessions
Online How do I... guide
rewritten User Manual
Redesigned ACUC Sessions
Preview V7 (Practice Management)
4 full time developers working on this.
Developer Workshop here on Sunday
User Board, User Survey,

Figure out how to turn issues in to solutions
order management, imort items, letter writer
what is a better design for each
Infrastructure work and stage 2 MU, ICD 10,

I went to the first ACUC in Branson. It was the most enthusiastic group of conference goers, of any medical conference, I have ever been apart of. Unfortunately, scheduling conflicts have kept me from RI these past two years.

Have a blast conference goers! And, any tidbits you want to share on the forum will be much appreciated!

Tom

We have been breaking into multiple concurrent sessions during the morning and then to lunch. There are multiple tracks going this afternoon as well.

Wish we were there...had a great time last year. Met with meaningful use consultants today. Suddenly it is okay that I use AC and I'm eligible for the $$$. REC has signed me on to facilitate my connectivity and meaningful use atestation "for free". They have waived the costs. I can hardly wait (not). For sure I don't want to leave money on the table however.

WOW.
4500 users so far. Is AC the number one EMR, if not, I wonder who is?

Amazing Charts is still a small EMR, as far as users. Allscripts claims to have 180,000 physician users. Practice Fusion says it is used by 80,000 physicians. GE Centricity reports 18,000 clinicians using their EMR.

In some things, size doesn't matter.

While AC may be much less than them, most of them are in large groups.

When you consider individual installations, the numbers will be much more similar. I do not have the numbers for that.

Also remember Practice Fusion is not MU certified.

For those who have asked, the website for CME & Feedback for the conference is www.ProvidersInn.com.

Go forth and render feedback.

Allscripts has 180,000 users?
That is a strange number, because in my area, the three most common I see are Amazingcharts, SpringCharts, and Eclinicalworks.

I only know one doctor who is using Allscripts but he is dropping it and switching to AthenaHealth.

Thanks INDY!

But Practice Fusion has this free but stuffed with ads as well as sharing your "deidentified" patient data for sale to folks like Big Pharma so they can target or avoid you, while making money on your data.... And once out of your hands can you really be sure that it is properly De-intendified enough for your patients, as well as your Own safety??? Not my cup of tea and I think their model compared to AC is like apples and oranges in terms of buy in verses low no investment PF... Different kind of user for sure... with different desires and standards for their data and practices... But when seen this way then the comparision does become interesting to note how many docs and practices are willing to drop the guard a large step or more in exchange for a "free no maintainance" EMR....

Paul

AC actually contacted me to get me in touch with REC. Is this the best route for getting the meaningful use?

It is my understanding that the path to attestation for meaningful use is through a REC. There are apparently something like 20 of them in NYS. They have received federal grant money to assist small practices with connectivity and getting meaningful use $$$. If I signed up with them by June 1st they waived the "admission" fee of $750. Also they are providing me with something like $3500 in consultation services. I signed up because it was clearly written that I could back out at any time and it isn't really costing me anything right now except my time. I had a phone meeting with the consultant last friday and he is coming to my office on June 20th. I was hoping to download V6 and play with it on a computer at home before the consultant actually showed up at my office. This is called the HealthEnewyork whatever.
Originally there was a big grant that was going to fund EMR's for the "region". I refused to participate because they chose about 5 or 6 emr's but refused to consider Amazing Charts for some reason. I think maybe it was too affordable and useable. I don't know. They are using 2011-2012 "Meaningful use glossary and requirements table".
Best Route?????? I'll let you know when I get the $$$. I do remember on another thread that Jon Bertman said that going through a REC would be our best bet. At the time all the REC's around here wanted cash upfront to join. I bought AC....I'm not paying for anything else. If they want my data....they are the ones who will need to pay to get it....not me. I'm the one on the front lines doing all the work...like taking the time to talk to the patient and document. I'm ranting. Sorry

Read my other comment to Bert about Meaningful Use. We're on the verge of leaving the system completely. No freakin' REC's for us or our patients PHI, Protected is the first word and we're going to protect their medical records from the prying eyes of all the millions of people in offices and carriers and the gov't across the country from all being able to access people's medical records in this horribly invassive anti-privacy "system" that was thrown together without almost any thought about hackers and protection of people most private parts of their lives. Mental health Dx's and Birth Control choices and all the rest. Like that stuff should be on the WWW with only a few mouse clicks between all of that and the next hacker from the Eastern Block or Asia... no thank-you please. Not for us and our family members....

Is Meaningful Use Criteria only for Medicare patients? So when it wants 50% of patients with Vitals, is it 50% of the Medicare patients?

I would think so. However It could also mean 50% of all patient visits. I don't know where can we get the clarification.

Travis
If you click on Meaningful use (green square) on the right upper corner of the screen,you well get another screen showing all the core measures and its requirements. Click on core 8: Record Vital signs. another pop up screen will show the objective and measure , exclusion
In the exclusion :it read Any Elgible Provider who belive that all three vitals signs of (height, weight, and blood pressureof the therir patients have no relevance to their scope of practice.

I belive this mean surgeons may be excluded base on that. These vitals has no relevance to my practice as a surgeon.
I hope this would help.

I want V6.

It will be interesting to see how the government might respond to surgeons who view vital signs as irrelevant to their practice??

The vitals that are required by the goverment are weight, hight and blood pressure. These vitals has no relevance to surgical patient. Since the patient is only seen a limited number of visits and no long term follow up.
If you read the explanation ; you should be able to draw a curve for the trend by your EMR. Which is not possibe for surgical patients.

They are now.

After looking at practice fusion online, I wonder why that is not the number 1 EMR. I do love AC and I will stay with it but look at the advantages of practice fusion.
1. free? I thought AC was cheap but who can beat free.
2. It is web based and so all upgrades are done automatically online rather than having to shut down the office to upgrade the computers.
3. free
4. support is free
5. It is also ONC certified.
Are there any disadvantages to Practicefusion other than the ads?

You never have a copy of the program in case they crash and burn or start going in a direction you don't agree with... Would you create documents, track finances only with software that at any time could be taken away from you, and now your data is practically useless???? Data only works as well as the user has access to the very propiatary software it was created in... But I am a broken record with this stuff. Some people don't want to face cold hard facts if and until it is too late because "Free" is so fog inducing.... take me to your leader. just like privacy issues that nobody wants to debate as so many people have just thrown in the towel on these kinds of issues and simply sheep like accept this as the new normal when it should never be accepted as Normal Ever....

Hockeyref:
I agree with what you say but do you think an EMR with 80,000 users would ever go under?

While it is "ONC Certified," It is NOT Meaningful Use Certified. They expect this by Summer 2011.

You get stuck with ads, and they sell your aggregate information to the highest bidder.

Can you say "Enron"???? "WorldCom"????

Sure I do... and remember that as much as perhaps 25 years after you close up shop, some baby born to your practice the last year you are open could come back on you and make enough of a stink insisting upon getting a full copy of their medical records... and what are you going to do if and when some Cloud based, only OUT THERE somewhere vendor choses to charge you some sort of an pain in the butt access user fees for up to 25 years of you retired life???

Something needs to be done about this and I gather the feds answer will be one day to insist upon us violating our patients rights of privacy and posting them all to the REC's that I also have no respect or desire to join as a practice manager as well as a patient consumer of healthcare myself... keep my records private and locked up tight in my doctor's office and certainly off of the internet, that is for damn sure... It's a real Civil Liberties issue to me and my wife. IN NYS my persepctive is the law but only for AIDS patients but not for any other embarressing or personal kinds of Dx's and problems.

Imagine a female Presidential Candidate having her choice of birth control "Leaked" because of a slip up at some server or any one of a few million offices and computers that will be tied into these nationalised healthcare records... Or her history of an abortion, or a misdiagnosis of Personality Disorder that can never be gotten taken off once one idiot puts it on there, forever staining your name and reputation, having every doc that meets you for the rest of your life thinking of you walking in the door as Borderline... Great, real nice... No Thank You Please!

Enron, WorldCom, GM, just to name a few....

Paul