Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations The Mac System and Amazing Charts

I am looking to incorporate Amazing Charts in my practice on a Mac based system. Any leads or pointers would be very helpful!

Thanks,

Tom

I don't think AC has been developed to run on the Mac OS. But you can flip the Mac into Windows mode and it will probably work.

Tom,

I have used AC on my home MAC. I use it mostly to try out new versions. It works perfectly under VMWare Fusion, and Parallels.
I prefer VMWare.

I do have trouble networking MAC with Vista Home versions. The MAC doesn't find the Vista PC's reliably. Pro verion may be better, but I have no experience with it.

If you only use MACs, I think it should network fine.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks so much for the info. So I would only need VMWare Fusion and Parallels? I do not need to buy a copy of windows for Mac? The good news is I will be using only Macs.

Thanks again,

Tom

Tom,

You DO need a copy of Windows. I use XP PRO.
There are several MAC programs to consider to run another OS in. I think Apple includes Bootcamp with OS Leopard.
I prefer to use VMWare Fusion to Bootcamp or Parallels.
See http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

Thanks Bill. Do you use a voice recognition program with it?

Tom

Would you recommend installing over Boot Camp or am I better off not using Boot Camp at all. Thanks!

A Web Version, run from an intranet or internet, would be OS independent.

Great idea!!

Is amazing charts available in a web version that I could use without downloading any software?

Thanks,

Tom

LoL Tom, you are asking a question that almost got me run out of town on a rail!!!

G & The Greater Gang,
I'm really going to do my best (ya I know) to repond to this in the most sportsman like manor possible. Quite a long time ago I spoke with a VAR about Altapoint which is one of the X-link supported, works with AC practice managment programs. They were offering a very unique service combined with the product AP, that I was researching.

They the VAR themselves, not AP, was offering to host AP for their customers in a very ASP type setting. But here is the ethical difference and catch. Instead of never owning the vprogram itself, as AP can be definitely purchased on disc as well as downloaded, it was their agreement with AP that the customers still had to purchase and were entitled to license copies of the AP program itself! What a concept! So now you own a real working copy of the program that your data was created in and the program and the data are always designed to work back on some average office's system, so your data is no longer in a hostage like situation.

I loved it and almost jumped on it as a solution to wanting to build a database of our own, of Nancy's PM and billing, all while allowing us the ablility to hava a small private contractor do our billing for us, mostly off site and in her home ala cottage industry private contractor. For other reasons at the time we didn't move forward with it, mostly because we were having other issues and were knocking around solutions, but this concept stuck with me and I shared it here on the board a long time ago too.

So, I emailed Jon and Carlos half joking that they should make me the VP in charge of marketing because I had the ultimate idea for marketing AC. Jon should directly do the same thing with AC and market it in the same way his does AC now. That were are the nice ethical company that will never allow your data to be held hostage. We will host for you if you care to avail yourself of the services, but we insist that you purchase as many legal licenses as you would normally, so you can always own and control the data, the charts, the encounters that you create in AC.

I never really heard anything back from AC or Jon and soon after all heck broke loose in AC ville as the numerical issues I found in the financial section started up and things got hot and ugly. This is when the EULA debates started and Roy and I especially were quite worked up about it as it seemed AC was moving away from instead of embracing an opportunity to build upon and grow further and into their reputation as the small, highly ethical, vendor that does not ever take advantage of their customers/users.

So I totally understand where you are coming from and there is some merit in your ideas, for none of us here are the first to suggest them or come up with them. I just want us to have those needed discussions, ground rules and even laws that govern these things in the favor of fairness, privacy of the patient and the doctor and not to simply serve both our corporate and governmental masters in enslaving us all for their own low valued self interests of power and greed.

Heck I still wish Jon would go ahead and create a great PM module accompany AC the EMR, and implement exactly what I have laid out here again, at least a year later. Please sell me and let me have an hold as many legal forever licenses as I have providers to license them, and insist and we shall gladly pay for annual support if we care to call or ping what so ever, all while hosting it on your servers and backing it up in that great enterprise multi-site high security way, and allow us access to our data from multiple sites whether is be because we want to use an off-site private contractor while others here need to build a single database with multiple sites and offices.

It would be glorious and I still think after all the posts I have read lately about, two distinct databases, housecalls, multiple offices and all the rest it would be such a wonderful and needed service that Jon would have a ton of present and new users beating a path to his website and business. And I would modestly and humblely accpect a small percentage as the guy who really cared about his business and it's growth to give him an idea that would serve both his users and his own bottom line.

G-Money and I say that in the most affectionate of ways for it was the character name of one of my favorite actors from one of his (mine) favorite shows, Yaphet Kotto as the Captain from Homicide, Life in the Streets. It was his affectionate nick name him by his troops at the station house. Loved him in Live and Let Die too.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaphet_Kotto

So ya see Gee I was only down on you because I made one of the worst mistakes of all, I "assumed" (and we all know what happens when you assume, the odd couple???) that you were a vendor type like that guy who was stalking Vinny here at just about the same time. I will say it again and I don't think it'll ever be enough, I am so sorry for making that terrible mistake and flaming you here so....

"When one "assumes" they make an "@$$" out of "U" and "me". Sorry G-money.....

HockeyRef please see it from this side. If there is a "web" version, YOU can run it from your webserver and db server within your practice. You still own the application and your data.

However, for those people who prefer zero footprint, AC can offer an HOSTED version.

This is the best of all possible worlds: platform independence, hosted or un-hosted.

The non-web EHR's I have seen try to "host" a windows app thru citrix.

dam.ntyit I don't know what you are talking about but it sounds interesting!!

First what is Citrix?

DocMartin,

Citrix is a software that allows people to run windows applications from a remote computer. Depending on the app it can slow, and require a lot of overhead. Additionally it requires a fast internet connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrix_Systems

Gee,
Ya talk to these vendors that offer these ASP model services and ask them straight up, do you offer copies of the program so users can run them on their own system and they all say no, I know I asked. This is all part of their shareholders, the CEO's, definitely CFO's grand plan, to keep the users on the Taximeter forever.

And most people who opt for these types of programs do so exactly because they don't feel very confident in their tech skills, so they prefer to let most of these issues be the vendor's problem. Heck that is even how most if not all of these programs get pitched and sold. "Don't worry about networks, servers, backup and the like, don't worry we'll take care of everything"

And so most of these people don't even know to ask the important and intelligent question about how to get their data back, "in a truely usable form". And half the time they get an answer that sounds good but they don't really even understand it and know that it actually doesn't mean very much at all. "Oh it is all HL7 based in an open format. OK so now how are you going to easily convert 4 years of notes and can it cross over to your next program? Not likely. If you're lucky and this is the case 9 out of 10 times, most practices can get the demographics to cross over from one program to the next and not a whole heck of a lot more. That doesn't make me feel very confident about my data and it shouldn't make anybody else.

I agree it sure seems that it shouldn't be a big deal to make programs that can do both, run on the vendors big ASP servers and still have a small office/home like version, but there you have it, they simply won't and don't. They want it that way, to do otherwise would not be in their own self interest, and so they don't.... So people build all this data in their propietary program and so if you are a regular user like myself and the majority of other folks here and at other offices, we don't have your skills, knowledge and confidence that we will ever be able to do anything useful with all those jumbled "0's" and "1's"; and so for the most part we and our data really are trapped, caught and held by the 's (sorry I just really enjoy doing that sometimes).

But G you are most probably correct that these two ideas shouldn't be and need not be mutually exclusive, but without some sort of enforcement and ethical guidance that comes from outside the inner sactum of these greedy enterprise sized software vendors and their bought and paid for hand puppets at CCHIT. Who by the way, half of their own people sit on the CCHIT committee itself, so we can all see where that leads to, right?, Don't ask me, talk to Al, he knows all too much about how in-breed and unholy this alliance really is. He has done more research on this nasty group than anyone I know, he is our champion in this aweful game.

Again, the technology itself is not good or bad, it's our own lack of self control to truely use it for the greater good, all while at the same time, protecting those things that are so important to protect. And although this really bad group of people would like to try and tell you otherwise, those two concepts are also not mutually exculsive either. With good people at the helm, it probably could be done, but that is not what they are after, now is it???

Who will stand up to them and speak for the greater good? Who will break up this unholy alliance of co-opted gov't officials and various medical organizations like AAFP, AAP and the AMA, and most of the state medical societies for sure, and the powerful self interested, well funded from Wall Street corporations? So far I see few except, myself, Al and Roy (where are you?? we need you). That is pretty sad.

Paul

Thanks G. I have to admit the level of computer literacy of the AC forums is waaay beyond me. But thanks to you and all for answering my question.

To me the Internet Hosting seems to be a great platform. No hard drive space taken. No hassles. Only theoretical concern - what if the Internet provider is down - we are then SOL. :-) :-(

It does not seem that many of you have opted for that platform though?

OK Just re-read your post Paul and see possible concerns. What you talk about I see in all industries. We can only make a difference by doing the best we can do.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world". MG.

HockeyRef,

I believe in the democracy of the market. Those who are sufficiently tech savy to be able to run a medical practice, computer systems are few and far between. Even so they should still have the ability to own and manage their software/data in their own environment.

Then there are those who do not want the hassle of purchasing, managing and maintaining servers and/or software. They should also have that option.

Instead of focusing on the "unscrupulousness" of the vendor, the consumer should be offered a choice which they will make depending on THEIR needs.

The market should decide the offerings...as it always does.

G- so how is Citrix different from a remote host? We bought five licenses so that we can run some thin clients and we can use those to log on from remote site.

Pretty much the same thing. Performance will suffer. You are trying to run a windows application that is running on a machine over the internet. Your response times are not going to be that great

So Citrix would offer no advantage? Go-to my PC etc all would be like the remote host? It is slow, but not terribly. Just slow enough to be annoying.

and so would citrix...except that citrix would allow you to run multiple sessions.