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Sorry to post this here... I don't post much. ever.

But I am a client of Indy, (one of the mods here) and I have had zero contact with him since 4/17/19. It's actually really starting to worry me. It's so unlike him. He is a true man of his word. I'm actually really worried for his well being at this point. Is anybody here in a closer relationship with him that they can make some calls or check on his well being?

Again, sorry. this is not AC related at all. But he is one of the good guys here and I'd like to know if he is ok.

Nic

Left click on Indy under Top Posters and try emailing him.

I couldn't ping his website, which is not a good sign.

http://www.bestforyourpractice.com

I knew he was moving away from the ACME business model. But he had said he was keeping a number of his current clients. But this isn't like he just closed up shop. Every one of his accounts that I can find, Linkedin, GBA, even here, just went dark on the 17th.

He even posted here, seeming, business as usual on the 13th. We were even in the middle of a Phreesia project and he had called me on the 16th. With plans for a future project with another practice.

then boom.... gone. While I am concerned about my data and practice. I'm really concerned that he is ok. Are there any other users here that are a client? I know DrLee on here just posted on the 17th that he uses him too.

I'm really quite worried.

I haven't heard from him... I'm worried too.

David Lee, MD
IM
Dallas, TX

Indy is exceptional...Hope all is well with him, his family, and his business.

Praying for him.

Gene

If anyone is truly concerned and has a current address, they can call the Laramie police at (307) 721-3547, explain the situation, and ask for a wellness check.

I tried that already, but I don't have his home address and they couldn't find anybody with his real name (Michael) in their drivers license database. So he must be registered in a different state.

If no one has a current business or home address, they can pay the small fee for an online background check that will suggest relatives and possibly other things.

The page below is an example that gives a few phone numbers to try and the names of some relatives. The full report costs money.

https://www.fastpeoplesearch.com/michael-l-astleford_id_G-7610653087401183903

The current address in the link above is just a UPS-store mail-box.

The appropriate people are looking for him.
Hopefully we will hear from him soon.

We here at Amazing Charts have historically had very little visibility into the practices hosted by Indy. We do not have a list of practices other than familiarity with a couple we worked with together. Due to the uncertainties around this current situation, if Indy hosts your Amazing Charts server it would be highly advisable that you do a manual backup ASAP and store that file locally at a secure location other than Indy's server. If you were to call Amazing Charts for assistance, and do not have a backup of your data, there is literally nothing we can do to assist you other than provide you with an empty Amazing Charts database hosted in our environment for you to start over from scratch. If you have any questions please contact Amazing Charts Technical Support and we can walk you through the backup process.

Prayers for Indy and family.

Wondering if anyone has an update. Thinking of Indy.

No update that I have about his whereabouts.

As for the BFYP stuff. Amazing Charts and the team have been absolutely Amazing, pun intended. Claire at AC started extra early and stayed extra late saving our practices from this unfortunate event. My data and practice have been successfully moved to the AC cloud with little fuss. I don't know about the other practices.

I do know she mentioned that AC went through their whole system to find anybody who may have been represented by Indy at some point. She mentioned they found 4 other practices that weren't even aware of the situation because their managed environments were functioning fine.

UpDox and Phreesia have been just as equally as supportive. Thanks to all!

I very much consider Indy a friend of mine and this has weighted a lot on my heart. It sucks to say, but I hope it was some sort of emergency and he is being cared for and that this was not a pre-planned thing for a run for the border or worse.

This is weighing heavily on all of us friends, and his family. He had told me that he planned to have a new business name and domain by 4/14, so he may have shut down BFYP in preparation. Everything else I can find from before he went out of contact was forward looking and seemingly normal. I am frightened that something terrible has happened to him. We hope for positive news.

I hate to by the cynical one, but seems weird he had a whole business with other people working for him, and no one can be reached. And his website went down at the same time - something that would not happen with a medical emergency. Seems planned to me. Nonetheless I hope he is well and wish him well.

David Lee, MD
IM
Dallas, TX

I can only assume at this point he had no planned exit. After lots of calls to his other business adventures and a number of other places, I have found that any position he held at any place: Chapter President at the Global Blockchain Assoc, CSO at MedChain, Linkedin, BFYP website, even the places he was due to do speaking engagments.

ALL of them have been relinquished. not abandoned... as in he had to quit them before going AWOL.

this had to be planned. Maybe quickly, maybe all in one day. But in hindsight he didn't want to completely screw people. He could have pulled the plug on the BFYP servers and cut us all off, but he didn't.

That I am thankful for.

Interesting regarding Indy resigning all his posts. Did anybody contact his wife?

I did speak to his ex-wife via email in my hunt for him. They last she or their adult daughter heard from him was 4/13. The authorities have visited her for any information, but she had little to give. They are just as concerned as the rest of us.

Any updates?

Thanks

Gene

No, nothing.

For those following this thread, we have the answer. Indy did not abandon us. His body has been found, died of an MI per an autopsy. I don?t know anything further or about arrangements.

Shocking and sad bit of news. Thank you for sharing with the group!

RIP Indy. You will be missed.

Hope he was out hiking or doing something he enjoyed....

Donna thanks for letting us know

Gene

This is so saddening... Such a great mind and friend lost. He was the one who pulled my practice through many IT crisis.

He will be greatly missed. Prayers for him and his family.

Nic

That is sad news. I hope it was fast and he has moved on to a better place.

Hi everyone,

I never met Indy. I only talked with him a few times, briefly, by phone. Most of our contact was over this forum.

That being said, even with limited contact, he was exceptional. I will cite one example.

About 6 years ago, our office email account was hacked. This happened on a busy Monday morning. I posted on this user board, hoping that someone would chime in.

About 2 minutes later, my receptionist came to get me. "There is a guy on the phone, he says his name is Indy and that I would want to talk to him." Indy saw my post, tracked down my phone number, called, and was very very helpful with advice how to handle the situation.

http://achelp.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/57058/Scary_morning#Post57058

http://achelp.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/57062/Thank_you!_Thank_you!_Thank_yo#Post57062


My regret is that we never got to meet face-to-face. Indy actually had some business in the western Pennsylvania area, and a few years ago he called, very short notice, he was in the area, had some free time, and offered to get together for lunch. Unfortunately, my schedule did not permit this. So we decided "Next time."

RIP Indy. And thanks.

Gene

Possibly the best Indy thread ever. Helps to know Maryland/western Pennsylvania to fully appreciate.

http://achelp.amazingcharts.com/ub/ubbthreads.php/topics/52543/1

Indy was a true gentleman, a very kind individual.
We had many a long conversation about lots of different things
He had a broad base of knowledge and will be missed as a friend and for his neverending support.
Funny, I just bought a leather cowboy hat last month

I had the honor of learning from Indy at many Amazing Charts Conferences.

Most memorable was our first meeting about 10 years ago at the Westin Providence. My flight was delayed and it looked like I was going to miss my first night, so I called and alerted the hotel. However, I ended up arriving for that first night, only to be standing at the front desk to find out that my room was no longer available and that there were no rooms nearby. Then this gentleman behind me wearing an Indiana Jones hat,whom I'd never met before, speaks up and said that he was attending the conference and has a room to share. I took him up on on his kind and generous offer. On a humerous note , my wife (who wasn't attending the conference), was a little bit concerned that my new "friend" also sported a leather whip in his suitcase to round out his Indiana Jones theme :-)

RIP Indy. You'll be missed.

Seem Indy was a special person. It appears that he was the one who called me during a weekend when I posted an SOS. Truth be I did not know him or of him
before or even after he lent me a hand. But from the postings on this thread he obviously was someone I would have been blessed to have known. I can see I would have learned a lot from him. He appears to have been the complete opposite of who I am. Unfortunately I have become leery of strangers, and not the first one to jump out and lend a hand to a stranger outside my clinic. May be I can make an effort to be a little more like Indy in his honor. In fact if I ever get another GSD I will consider naming him Indy, after the stranger who took time out of his busy weekend to assist me when I needed help when there was no one available who would or could help.

Indy and I met at the second AC conference which was at Providence (the first was in Branson, MO).
Jon Bertman had invited him as a presenter and consultant. He and I struck up a conversation that led to lunch and we had several other group meetings at that conference outside of the formal meetings. This led me to using him as an adviser for IT issues.
His Meet Ups were spectacular! I attended the ones in Wyoming and San Diego. There were a couple I could not make. We talked the gamut, he taught me so much, he felt I taught him a lot. He was a true renaissance man. I served as one of the consultants in his company and have felt him a dear friend. He will truly be missed.

Indy was very special and quite a generous and helpful guy, without a doubt. None of the above stories surprise me in the slightest. I could list a number of people in the Baltimore area alone who have similar tales of Indy's unselfish outreach to solve their tech problems. Personally, I could give numerous examples of the times he dropped everything to help me out with office and technical issues. After helping me out, I would literally have to fight with him to convince him to accept some compensation for his expert help. He didn't just have the knowledge to help; he was extremely generous with it.

At the AC user's conference in Providence in 2011, I heard Indy's talk. In the plane on the flight home, I heard someone a few rows up talking about AC. Seeing that Indiana Jones hat from the back, I knew it had to be Indy. Ultimately, he connected with a group of us who were lost in the wilderness of trying to understand and implement an EHR, with all of the stress that entails.

Indy's idea was to get together with docs and have "meet-ups" in fun places to discuss technical and practice management issues, bond in the recognition of our shared battles, and at the same time, form friendships and have fun in a pleasant setting. He was a driving force behind small group meetings in Lake Tahoe, Laramie, Wyoming, and San Diego. Each event was a success in its own way. That combination of helping docs through learning, camaraderie, and fun was Indy's vision.

And it was truly a vision. The first meeting, the one in Tahoe, was terrific. For one thing, it was notable for a knock at the cabin door which turned out to be Jon Bertman who flew in to spend a day with about 12 of us, discussing our concerns about AC and his plans to remedy them. I also remember that a small group of us, including Indy and his wife Lori, stayed up late in a conversation that covered a lot of ground. In subsequent years, Indy often referenced that meeting as the genesis of his plan to spend his career helping docs. He saw us as "people who are trying to do good" and wanted to find a way to make a living, using his own personal expertise and experiences to help us. This alone is just one reason I miss Indy; we all should appreciate him for this. And don't think for a minute this was just talk, or an act. Organizational skills were not his strong suit, so he sometimes struggled to implement this personal vision, but there is no doubt that he believed in it, and "walked the walk" of helping us out whenever he could.

Indy, I miss you, respect you, and I thank you. I will lift a glass in your memory. Others here in our Maryland user's group will do the same, as will those from New York to Cumberland to Utah to Montana to Chicago to Indiana to LA. In fact, it is safe to say that people all over the country are mourning your loss. May you rest in peace.

I have been trying to figure out how to say what I thought of Indy, but, as always, Jon has said it perfectly. It is exactly what I would say if I was eloquent enough. I still kick myself for not making it to Tahoe, but the other meetings were great. Indy was superb as a people person, and put a lot of effort into bringing us together. And, yes, he was always there. If you needed IT advice, not just AC, he was always willing to help. I am glad that I had a couple of conversations with him a few weeks before he left us. I had called about hosting, but we had a wide ranging conversation about topics, the business of medicine, his new IT plans and life in general. I miss you Indy, I hope you know how much we thought of you. Your kind and generous soul will live on in our memories.

My wife and I met Indy and his wife in Laramie and San Diego, both really fun trips and met a lot of nice folks from this forum. Indy introduced me to the chromebook which I had not even heard about till the Laramie trip. The chromebook approach in my practice has been extremely practical and useful. The other thing Indy helped me with was initiating thinking about the cloud use of AC. I eventually decided to go with AC instead of his hosted service, but without hearing of his hosted service and the possibility of the cloud, I probably would not have gone this route. Just more practical and useful information I got from Indy. He also helped me out in a pinch one weekend. With the original AC in the Cloud if my nurse or I double clicked too quickly we would get the dreaded black box and I would have to get a hold of IT support to remedy. I could not get a hold of IT support and Indy came to my rescue and got a hold of someone from IT who got it taken care of. And I echo all the nice things said above by everyone else about Indy. Still in a little bit of shock about his death. Can't quite wrap my brain around it yet, buy very saddened.

https://www.searchquarry.com/namese...type=Death&type=&trid=&ntyp=

or https://tinyurl.com/y428nwhj

Obituary:

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/regina-sk/michael-astleford-8724831