Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Satisfaction with Amazing Charts in the Cloud.

I am wondering what the satisfaction level is for those utilizing cloud-based Amazing Charts and would you do it again versus keeping your data on your local machine? Do you have any recommendations or insights to a user that wants to go to the Cloud?

Have been on AC Cloud for about a year.
Very satisfied in general, wouldn't dream of going back to local machine.
Speed of access from home or elsewhere is the same as in the office, obviously.
Occasional hiccoughs, responded to by AC fairly promptly.
Shifting the responsibility to a third party has been a huge relief for me.

I have some concerns about AC in the long term; for instance the speed of opening and closing patient charts is noticeably slower since version 8.1.1, which I find troubling and hope it won't get worse in the future. But these concerns have little to do with cloud vs. local.

Michael
NY

I've been running AC in the Cloud for two years and love it. It's ideal for the small office with good, reliable internet connectivity. The Cloud version is also ideal for the doc like myself who has little time/inclination to fuss with servers/networks and such. Upgrades are a breeze.

Michael and John:

I am curious to know if you are using Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate your notes. What type of Internet connectivity do you have? How often are Internet problems occurring. Do you have any concerns about your patient data being stored off-site, and being able to retrieve it in a timely fashion if you stop using the cloud?

I don't dictate, only type.

Internet connection is DSL at the office, Verizon FIOS at home.

Internet problems don't happen for very long, very often. But once some folks working on plumbing in the basement of our office building sliced through a big fat Verizon cable, cutting off phone and DSL connection to several buildings. It took two or three days to get it back, and I ended up cancelling a number of patients as I couldn't access their charts easily. I was able to tether using my cellphone, but the connection was so spotty it was almost useless. I would certainly recommend having some sort of emergency internet backup, though I admit I don't have one right now.

Our internet goes down for a few minutes every couple of days, and though that's not a problem per se, whenever it happens I have visions of being incapacitated for a long time, which is unpleasant.

I don't have concerns about patient data being stored off site. The cloud service provider has to have a business service agreement, HIPAA compliant, and I assume that's good enough.

I would think if one wanted to go back from cloud to local, you would just have to download everything back to your local computer, which would take a while (imported items) but is feasible.

Michael

I am quite content with the cloud experience. Have been using it for about a year. I have a fast DSL connection and it has worked quite well up until the latest update. Now it is extremely slow but it sounds like this is happening to everyone. Hopefully this will be fixed soon. I recommend the cloud if you don't feel like dealing with your own network. I still have not spent as much on my monthly charge for the cloud as I did with my local expert. Haven't called him since I got the cloud. Go for it if you have fast DSL or better.

Bill,

What kind of speeds are you getting with DSL?

Mel,
If you are asking how fast my DSL is, it is

21MBPS down and 4.75 up at the office.

But at home it is much slower than that and I cannot perceive a difference in the speed of Amazing Charts

Just ran a speedtest in the office (DSL)
Around 14 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up
Works ok.

Home is FiOS, much faster.

Michael
NY

Is anyone using UPDOX or UP TO DATE, and do any of these affect your speed or responsiveness of Amazing Charts on the cloud? We are trying to decide how much bandwidth is needed by our group if more than one doctor and staff go on to the cloud at the same time. Currently, we are getting uploads speeds around 5 Mbps and download speeds between 50 and 90 Mbps. We're investigating microwave transmission at 30/30.

Mel,

With Updox, the latency will be about the same, and I have never heard about Up-To-Date being a performance issue; I think Bert uses it, but he runs dark fiber, so ymmv.

The two issues that you are going to run into are upstream network contention, and network latency with Dragon.

We have a group practice that uses Dragon extensively, and we are moving them from our managed environment to a new server in their office to improve the Dragon experience for the group. If your bandwidth is limited, the Dragon experience will suffer for remote users.

Indy,

Do you see any advantages of using Amazing Charts Cloud-based services versus a local server? The idea of having Amazing Charts do maintenance and upgrades is appealing to some. This also requires less expenditures for equipment. Long-term, however, it may be more expensive to subscribe versus having a local server.

Hello all,

I have a mobile solo practice, Geriatric Home visits & Hospice, have been a cloud user for several years & wouldn't go back - pre-cloud I BU'd regularly to AC & Sync'd the database, also to 2 other layers of local secure offsite servers - Sync was a HUGE hassle for me & for AC IT - it was overwhelmed w the size of the database (@ that time ~ 3 Gb).

When in the field I connect w a Verizon Ellipsis 4G hotspot which usually works like a charm, but if i'm in an outlying area & the 4G is weak, may have to use the iphone hotspot - don't like eating the phone battery though.

no probs bringing up UD at any time.

in NM, even in the largest city, there's spotty internet even in older neighborhoods, but I can almost always get a connection.

I highly recommend AC cloud, can't see why not . . .

ortega md
abq, NM

Can someone tell me how to migrate the pt charts out of the cloud. I am changing my EHR and need to get my records to the new one? Cant ask IT as I dont have guardian support.