What are myAvatar users saying about the software?

Robust Software

Robust feature set makes it very flexible solution

Pros

The feature sets are nice. They provide both outpatient and inpatient features. They offer the ability to customize exiating forms or create your own.

Cons

The solution is java based and can be slow. Could require a lot of maintenance by IT staff if not in a Citrix type emvironment.

Nursing Perspective

Pros

The home viewing screen is use friendly, When the user sees the screen for the first time, It it makes you comfortable for training, simplistic as opening up a paper chart.

Cons

There is so much you can do with it (The Program) some companies who are afraid of electronic charting don't utilize all the functions that it can do that can make the job even easier.

Avoid Avatar

Without question the worst EMR I have ever used. Time consuming, clunky, inefficient, and extremely frustrating. Our system is actively seeking a replacement and it cannot come soon enough.

Pros

Avatar has a wide variety of features, but the steps involved to complete even simple tasks and the incredibly cumbersome and counter-intuitive interface makes the whole experience a nightmare.

Cons

Absolutely awful program--trying to enter a simple medication order requires a dozen steps, poorly designed options, and navigating to multiple screens. Labs are difficult to find. There is no way to cut and paste a note within the program--it has to be accessed as a PDF, saved and converted to an editable Word RDF document, and then reformatted into Word, edited, and then cut and pasted back into Avatar. The examples are endless. . .and you want to use Word for notes, as the program crashes with depressing regularity.

No support

Used to be good now it's poor

Pros

When we purchased it, it was very good but now not so much

Cons

Cost, no support from Netsmart, not able to make font size adjustment so you can read the home page. Many other fields that can't be changed

Designer clearly never worked in the field

I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy it.

Pros

???? Cool name? I can't think of anything this program does that is not better provided by other software.

Cons

The 72 hour deadline ensures that most people are putting in poorly witten and spelled garbage, because in real life emergencies happen and you can't always plan enough time for documentation on a giver day. The program is unwieldy to use: there is no way to set defaults to save time or enter multiple notes on one client without have to search the client, and enter all the same information again. You can't easily correct or add to a note once submitted. It's not user friendly- the software is sloppy. It is very difficult to find anything once you have put it in unless you know who entered it and the exact date. For the first time in over 30 years in the field, I almost never check notes , because it is no difficult to find anything. More than half of the note that comes up is repetitiuos garbage in tiny print, if you do make the effort, so it is hard to find the info that was input. If you enter anythingincorrectly in the calendar, you lose all the data and have to start over. In some reports you have to enter your last name and first initial, on others you get an error message if you enter your first initial. Some common client names are glitchy and do not come up when you search, so you have to look up their record number.

Avatar, the Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Pros

The software can be customized to meet state and federal requirements. Avatar has the capability to allow individual users to change screen requirements to meet their daily workflow needs and screen shots. Avatar has a forms format that is compartmentalized keeping data protected from view of client or staff that is not authorized for medical history( i.e. receptionist does not view prescriptions and social history). Screens can be adjusted for color blindness, poor vision and put in an work flow order. Customer support was professional and were often able to make corrections with in the day.

Cons

The issues we have experienced is some documentation not being put on the server. Difficulty with learning to navigating to find the needed forms. A document may be listed by abbreviation in the creation of document but when looking in the clients clinical record it may be listed differently in two areas, such as to edit or to read current information with different titles. This lead to lots of confusion when the users tried to explain to the IT department which form was not working. There is also a lot of unnecessary repetitive drop downs such as type of note, when it was in schedule and 3 places on the document. Avatar is difficult to have multiscreen shots to see a completed note when following up with a current service. The timers for informing clinicians of upcoming work need improvement this lead to a lot of unbillable services.

Barely better than paper

It's made me very jealous of providers that use Epic. It looks nice, it's fast, and it seems to be laid out logically with the user in mind.

Pros

Avatar was the upgrade from our previous software SATIS, about 15 years ago. That felt like an upgrade compared to the MS-DOS like UI of SATIS.

Cons

Slow and clunky. Frequent outages would paralyze our ability to work. Running simple reports with few pages can take 30 minutes, and that may be on a fast day. We were just recently "upgraded" to the NX version, and wow...never have I seen an upgrade be such a downgrade. It's as if they surveyed users to find out what functions were most beneficial to an efficient workflow, then made a conscious effort to take them out...literally. There is no evident benefit to the upgrade other than a visual refresh. Efficiency was clearly not a focus as it now takes more time and work to complete tasks that could be done from the home screen. The scheduling calendar looks like it open 3-4 different pages before then looking like Netflix on shoddy wifi on a Friday night. Some information that used to be visible in one click has been made impossible to access without running a massively time consuming report for a few lines of info. Someone coming from paper charting might decide paper isn't too bad. The best part of NX is that it made me realize that the previous version wasn't so bad. I would only suggest it to people looking to frustrate their employees into resignation. I could blame my employer for choosing to go live with it in it's current state, but this is Netsmart's product, and it's horrible.

Netsmart Avatar needs improvement

Netsmart Avatar COULD be a good program if only the folks at Netsmart would make it more stable.

Pros

once learned, you can enjoy a couple months of stability in your work day. you can take donut breaks when it crashes.

Cons

it crashes. gives you cryptic error messages (before it crashes). it won't let you log on. Netsmart seems to be building in problems that the city will then pay to keep the platform running.

Very costly, not user friendly, terrible business model.

Pros

It is 'robust'. That is to say that if you have the resources to have IT staff dedicated to customizing this product it is very configurable and can house and product data reports to a great extent.

Cons

The software is a beast; not supportable in house by people that are not IT brainiacs. Of equal importance is that the Netsmart business model is not financially unsustainable for any operation other than a state or large hospital system, Everything is a separate module, not well integrated either and each have separate implementation, annual user and annual licensing costs. On top of all of this it is not user friendly or intuitive for staff at ALL!

This Program is the absolute WORST medical program I have ever used and it is also the slowest one.

It is the WORST medical program I have ever used and it is also the slowest one I have ever used.

Pros

Turning it OFF at the end of everyday!!

Cons

This program is so slow and not user friendly at all. Takes five ever to schedule an appointment. I would not recommend this program to anyone.

Not practical in M.D. private practice. of Psychiatry.

Time is money in Psychiatry as in everything else. This product slows one down seriously. Everything has to be typed in every time, or has to be manual ' copy and paste ' to 'progress note' site brought in from ' print medical records' 'a slow or I should say very slow process. When you come back to 'progress note' you have to punch in patient name again. In as much as I know, there is no way to build automatic templates, unless you copy and paste from Microsoft word, which is a process itself for one's gotten used to apple products. There is also no way to automatically build up on already existing date such as identifying info, social hist., past history, etc unless you transfer the whole previous note and then comb thru each line. Many systems like ' epic 'allow you to update easily to old notes. The system is old, with no major improvements except one to ' my avatar'.Somehow it has managed to dominate mental health field. Recommendations-- At the very least build one button templates for different kind of notes psychiatrists write which are just a few anyways.

We weren’t just looking for the right software product, we were looking for the right partner. We replaced components of our legacy back end practice management software with MyAvatar’s Practice Management (PM) and Clinical Workstation (CWS) solutions; also modules like MobileConnect, which allows its more than 200 clinicians to take and submit electronic notes securely from the field without having to come to the office. It’s gotten rave reviews from the staff. Netsmart is constantly improving their product and has made it possible for us to move forward and successfully receive "Meaningful Use" stimulus dollars to help pay for our EHR initiatives. They are a very good vendor partner for Henderson.

Absolutely the WORST!!

This system has doubled the amount of time we're writing notes and we are capturing a fraction of the information

Pros

Honestly? I like that I can change the color of my screen.

Cons

Impossible to navigate, you reenter the same information on multiple screens, the diagnostic feature is inadequate... the list goes on and on. No one in my agency likes it. It is clearly a vehicle to collect data. I would LITERALLY use an old typewriter instead of this. If you care anything about your patients, stay away from this platform!

Worst EMR I have ever encountered

Pros

Nothing at all, this product literally has no redeeming qualities.

Cons

Completely ridiculous formatting that requires an extraordinary number of extraneous keystrokes to enter even basic information.

We are a behavioral health company serving all ages. We implemented Avatar in 2009, and upgraded to myAvatar six months ago. The upgrade was very simple and fast (approximately 5 hours), and no problems occurred. They provided a manual for the staff that showed the difference between Avatar and myAvatar, and no other training was required.

Abandon Ship!

Pros

This product is made available through our Behavioral Health Organization at no cost to providers until year 2020.

Cons

Clunky, need next generation options, SUD assessment requires cut and paste from Word processing as the fields do not align with ASAM criteria.