Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations The AC Conference is now a reality

Dear Amazing Charts Users,

After a few weeks of planning the first Amazing Charts User Conference is now a reality; here is the latest update.
The conference will be held at the opulent Chateau on the Lake in Branson Missouri on June 20, 21 and 22 (plan to arrive June 19 afternoon or evening). Please check out the Chateau at
http://www.chateauonthelake.com/
The tuition will be $100 for each attendee. The tuition will be payable to the Amazing Charts office by check or credit card.
The meeting times will be 8 a.m. to noon on Friday and Saturday and from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sunday. Buffet breakfasts will be provided each day to each conference attendee.
We plan to have a total of ten hours of talks provided by Amazing Charts Users; Jon Bertman and his AC Staff will present afternoon breakout talks. The agenda will be the responsibility of the Agenda Committee (currently comprised of Jon Bertman, MD, Brian Cotner, MD, Bert Adams, MD, Adam Lauer, DO, Fred Faust, MD and me). The Agenda Committee will be appreciative for your thoughts on agenda content. Please also let us know if you would like to present one of the talks. There will be ten hours of Category I CME available for attendees who use Amazing Charts in their practices.
We have negotiated significant discounts at the Chateau and have reserved twenty King Suites($179 per night) and a total of ten Ambassador Suites ($268 per night). We only have the total of 30 rooms reserved and it will be first come first serve (at least 11 have already been spoken for). There may be the possibility to reserve more, but this is a very popular time of the year at the Chateau and we cannot guarantee additional rooms. You may make your reservation to the Chateau directly by calling their toll free number 1-888-333-LAKE (5253; please tell the reservation operator that you are making reservations for the Amazing Charts User Conference June 19 - 22 (three nights).

Branson has over 140 hotels and dozens of condos all within a mile of the Chateau if you would prefer alternative lodging. This conference promises to be very informative and a lot of fun; we hope you can make it.

Best,
Jim Blaine, MD
Cell 417 830-9286

Thanks, Jim. I just made my reservations.

I saw the Chateau last week and it is gorgeous, with a beautiful pool, glass elevators, and a wonderful view of the lake. As Jim stated in another post, we couldn't see any room interiors, because they were all occupied (the place is popular).

They also have an awesome-looking spa there! It is deluxe, but if you want to use the spa, I think you have to make a separate reservation.

As Jim says, if they run out of openings in June, there are accomodations of every kind in Branson, within easy reach of the Chateau.

I take my wife and kids to Branson from time to time, and I have had a good experience every place I have ever stayed. It is a family-friendly, tourist town, and this is generally reflected in clean establishments with friendly service. There is a lot of competition between hotels to attract repeat customers.

Thanks, Jim. I'm in too. I'll get my registration check in the mail to AC here in the day or so.

Leslie

Has anybody come up with some type of online access (great if you could earn credit) to attend. The end of June is a bad time for me to attend, but would love to log on and attend virtually.

Yeah, same here...

Great idea Steven. Some online version would be cool for those of us that can't make it this year. Even if it just a webcast or something.

Unless there are some User attendees who are gifted in the area of webcasting, I will have to appeal to the technological resources of Amazing Charts, Inc.

I agree, webcasting is probably outside the scope of this conference.

Hi You Guys:

I disagree!!! It's not that hard- check out Nick Harrington at HIMSS. He just purchased a ticket to HIMSS (at $800, was the hardest part!), then proceded to do webcast interviews with a simple digital camera seen here- http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/t/13156.aspx

For AC, these webcasts can not only be shown directly to individuals to maintain AC interest, highlight new features and upgrades, but also to show new ways of using the AC EMR. It can be shown at emrupdate, where I'm sure it'll be pinned up as a special post during the event, and even on YouTube. All you have to do is upload the vids using a fast connection. I have both fiberoptic (at home) and a T1 (at work), so I can volunteer the uploading and distribution if you want... just send me the zipped files.

Many other EMR vendors do it, and one that comes to mind is eCW which has dozens of YouTube videos advertising their EMR by showing actual physicians using the product (see http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Hawaii+EMR&search_type=). At emrupdate there is a "Showcase" area where webcasts can be shown for free- http://www.emrupdate.com/videos/. There should be an area at the AC site for such webcasts and flash videos of AC in use. (Just look up "Camtasia" at emrupdate for discussion on how to do the flash videos- http://www.emrupdate.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?q=camtasia&PageIndex=2 ).

It's the cheapest advertisement one can buy! It would be a royal mistake for AC NOT to do webcasts of this major event. I'm sure one of the attendees can volunteer a high schooler to do the filming for minimum wage!

Jon, Vinny, you listening?

Cheers,
Al

Actually, AC should get Nick Harrington or Robert Gleeman from emrupdate to webcast the event and to post it in their website. Nick really did a great job with Robert helping him post up the webcasts. It would be professionally made and still be a great deal...

Cheers,
AL

I'm in, if it was just a little closer, or I had a little more time I could have a nice ride but I guess I'll be flying in commercial. Is there more than one airport and if so, which is closest?

Webcasting or some kind of posting after the meetings online would be great as unfortunately, I can't get coverage and won't be able to go-----maybe next year!

There are several airports in the region.
Kansas City Airport and St. Louis Airport are both approximately three hours drive time from Springfield. Springfield Airport is approximately 45 minutes from Branson and would be a good choice if it works for you.
Tulsa Airport is approximately two and a half hours from Branson; the drive to Branson from Tulsa goes through some nice Ozarks country.
There is also a new smaller airport that is located in Bentonville Arkansas and is probably an hour and a half from Branson
http://www.nwara.com/travel/airlines.asp
This one is called Northwest Arkansas Airport and was built because Bentonville is the home of Wal-Mart.
Jim

The Amazing Charts User Conference (ACUC) electronic brochure is finally completed.
Please check out
http://www.amazingcharts.com/acuc/
You will notice that we have increased the Category I CME hours to 12. We kept the registration fee to the promised $100; this includes daily continental breakfasts and a Family & Friends Buffet Friday evening provided by Amazing Charts.
The negotiated room rate is $179 per night for the King Suite and $268 for the Ambassador One Bedroom Suite. This may seem a bit pricey, but the conference is being held at the spectacular Chateau on the Lake in Branson Missouri and these rates represent a singnificant discount. Jon is going to wait a few days before he sends out the electronic brochure to everyone else to allow those of us on the User Board first chance for the rooms. He has done this in appreciation for the input from the User Board over the years that has assisted in the continual development of Amazing Charts. Unfortunately, we were only able to reserve a total of thirty rooms and it will be first come first serve for the Chateau rooms; however, there are dozens of other hotels, condos etc. in Branson.
Many Thanks to Jon Bertman, Brian Cotner, Bert Adams, Adam Lauer and Fred Faust for all of their efforts.
This should be an informative and enjoyable event. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
See you at the ACUC!
Best,
Jim
jimblaine@aol.com
417 830-9286

I have been reading the user board and playing some with the free AC download. I am a paper chart dinosaur in solo Family Practice and I am paralyzed with fear to make the jump to EMR. This conference sounds like it is mostly geared to those who are current users of AC and want to perfect their technique. Do you think it would be useful for a neophyte/potential AC user such as myself. Will there be any introductory lectures?

Thanks

Hey, Bill:

It is good to hear from you. Thanks for sharing your concerns.

Some of the details of the Conference will change as the date draws nigh. Amazing Charts keeps growing and improving, and our discussions will have to shift to keep up!

However, at this point, there are at least two presentations by people who changed from paper to paperless. I think these would be perfect for you.

Hopefully, at the same time, these discussions are going to highlight some of the unique qualities of Amazing Charts and provide food for thought for the more advanced users.

Also, afterwards, there will be users and Amazing Charts representatives hanging out with their laptops and there will be time for informal discussions and demonstrations that may help alleviate your fears.

Bill,

Just to offer you some moral support, I too am still using paper AND AC. After 20 years in practice it has been very difficult for me to make the change to a totally paperless office. In fact, the main reason I even started using an EMR 8 years ago was to cut down on transcription costs and still be able to have a legible note. I still print out my encounters and do not scan in anything (except insurance cards into my PM program). I still love AC and find it to be very useful even if I am only using a part of it. I have waivered back and forth about going ahead and making the leap to totally paperless but, at my stage of the game, I am not sure it will be worth the time and effort. But, that is still under consideration.

I think you would learn a lot about AC at the conference and suspect you would find a way to mold it to your own practice style. This user board is terrific for coming up with "work-a-rounds" to help in just that way.

Anyway, hope that helps.

A fellow tyrannosaur

I need to hook up with Bert sometime over the next few nights to properly install and start playing with his File Assist Pro program that is supposed to play fairly nicely with AC. I am hoping to use this to finally get away from most paper here at our place. After I have it in place and if I feel it will work for us, we have a nice local HS kid whose mom worked for us for a while who I will have coming in after school to start scanning, converting, and filing all this darn PAPER.

So I will post a few things from time to time as we get into this over the next few weeks to a month. I'm thinking that eventually we will need to buy a good stand alone scanner, like the SnapScanner a lot of folks have spoken about, because all of the HP AIO's seem to scan and load their software very slowly. But I am going to try that again as I just installed 5 times the RAM into our main P2P server last night, so perhaps that might have a positive afffect on performance of such things. We shall see.

But in the end I think if you are able to make the conference without too much trouble, hanging out with all these other "AC Heads" can only prove to be a benefit. I'm really hoping that Vinny who seems to be MIA lately might be able to join us as well. Nancy and I are still knocking around if we can join the gang there in Branson, but personally, I am really wanting to try and make it. I feel that this get together is going to be a very positive thing that will probably lead to some really good synergy between AC and it's users. Good old bottle of wine and brainstorming kind of stuff.

Some of my best brainstorming occured back in the 70's while sipping Cold Duck in a Ford Pinto hidden in the corn fields of Southern Indiana

Cold Duck in a Ford Pinto!!?? My first car was a Ford Pinto back in the 70's too. And we drank Cold Duck in the DC area too!

You guys could afford Cold Duck?? I remember vaguely something about Gallo Sangria in a Ford Fiesta!

With the reputation of those Pintos, I'm kind of glad you are here at all. Can you say "exploding gas tanks"??? They were even worse than the exploding "Firestone 500" radial tires that killed goodness knows who many people and just about ruined the introduction of the radial tire to the US.

Dodge Dart all the way for a good reliable, "compact" car from the '70's. It's Mopar or No Car.

Paul, the key was to simply avoid getting rear-ended. Not a whole lot of that going on in the corn fields! Strawberry Hill was another favorite.

Yeah, but Leslie I still own two old '72 A bodies!!! A really sweet 2/3's restored 4 Door, Dodge Dart and 2 Door Hardtop, Plymouth Scamp, both with A/C (of course), P/S, PDB, 318 smallblock V-8's (father of the 5.2 Magnum). I haven't changed really, just everything around me has. No how's that for growing old too quickly?

Now don't forget what we old car guys say about Fords.... "Found On Road Dead"

Don't forget Bartell's and James; "and thank-you for your support". The begining of the wine cooler craze.

I thank those who responded to my query about the usefulness of the ACUC for a neophyte. I looked into flights. $650 RT from Albuquerque, $175/night lodging, Rental car, Food... Can't swing it. I like the idea of the webcast! It could push those like myself who are slow to jump on the bandwagon into the wonderful world of Amazing Charts. I will watch the user board anctiously in anticipation of the announcement that the conference will be webcast.

Thanks.

Bill,
I just checked with SouthWest Airlines and you can purchase a RT ticket from Albuquerque to Tulsa for under $400.
You can purchase nice lodging in Branson for under $100 per night. The conference registration is only $100 and you receive 12 hours Cat. I CME along with continental breakfasts and a great buffet. All of this should be deductible.
Best,
Jim