I am considering moving from a locally hosted server to the cloud and have some basic questions. I am a solo physician and know very little about tech, so appreciate any and all suggestions. Here are my concerns?
1) Does the cloud go down very often? If so- how often and on average for how long?
2) Is it noticeably slower?
3) Is support better?
4) Does moving to the cloud affect my integrated local labs and diagnostic imaging services?
5) I have heard that you need two internet providers, is that true?
6) Do I need any special hardware? (such as a VPN connection?)
7) Browsing the forum, I notice people mention billing as a concern. How does going to the cloud affect the billing portion of eCW?
8) How smooth is the transition? Will I need to hire someone with experience in moving eCW specifically to the cloud?
9) Are there a lot of bugs that need to be fixed when you initially move to the cloud? (When I first purchased eCW in 2011 I had a support person who had implemented new clients before and knew what bugs to fix right away and how to set things up correctly. I don’t know who to hire for that kind of thing now.)
10) What happens to your data if you go out of business/retire?
11) Is it very expensive?
Thanks in advance
Pennie Marchetti, MD
solo practice family medicine
self hosted
eCW v11
user since 2011