AC Group Report

[Inga]

I see that the Futurist has released his "Ninth report on Practice Management System (PMS), Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) applications." It says it was last updated May 30th, 2007 - not exactly sure when it was released (the web site says "today" but has no date attached.) Anyway, NextGen is already bragging about their #1 ranking for EMR and PM applications (I would be bragging, too.)

So, anyone read the report yet and care to comment? I see that the report is $30 - didn't it use to be free?

[Burger]

Whoa, are you giving Mark Anderson way too much credit? The AC Group is him. What are his qualifications for releasing this report, other than giving lots of talks every year about the future of healthcare (which, if you have sat through, isn't very impressive). What is his methodology? I have issues with KLAS, but I'll bet they are much more disciplined/methodical and, hard to say about KLAS, but probably less biased. Having been a former consultant, I know that everyone on the consulting side has their biases (prefer x technology, sell more work related to y vendor, etc.).

How about an Inga investigation into the AC Group Report? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't expect to be.

[Inga]

I was simply giving Mark and company credit for compiling the report - valid or not. However, if you go to their site (www.acgroup.org (http://www.acgroup.org)) you can see the survey they use. There are literally thousands of questions about functionality (and company information.) Any vendor who takes the resources (HAS the resources!) to spend hours answering the survey deserves some credit! I believe that in addition to the survey, there is some validation by the AC Group (product demonstrations.)

As I mentioned in my posting today about the KLAS results, I would recommend that anyone looking for an EMR consider multiple reviews and rankings. One product may be highly ranked in functionality by the AC Group but does poorly in KLAS.

To your point suggesting Mark and other consultants may have a bias towards one product or another...well, of course. But if a consultant doesn't have an opinion (bias) then what value is the consultant?