Netsmart EHR

“Avoid if you value efficiency”

Pros

It's required to use on the job.

Cons

Avatar is the least reliable piece of software I think I've ever used, and I wish that was hyperbole. Performance on average is sluggish, unstable, the phrase "Avatar is down again!" is standard where I work. It will on occasion give glimses of it's abillity to function quickly, but forms ought to open instantly can generally take up to a minute or more. Being informed that an IT ticket has been forwarded to "the vendor" means Netsmart will ignore it, as we've had performance problems come attached to an update that was over a year and a half ago, but has yet to be resolved. Using Avatar is the worst part of my job.

“Easy to navigate”

Pros

Netsmart is extremely simple to use! The dashboard is well-organized and contains all the information I need within a single screen. Navigation is smooth as well and the entire system can be explored with just a mouse click. I really appreciate the automatic reminders that remind me of deadlines and timetables that I might otherwise overlook. The calendar app itself is very modern and simple to read. It contains all the details of every department and their upcoming as well as completed visits.

Cons

The Charting module feels disconnected from the rest of the software, which is quite frustrating to be honest. It feels like it was neglected during development as there are some inherent issues that even the excellent customer service hasn’t been able to solve. It is difficult to get in and out of charts, or move to schedules from charts, and there is a lot of back and forth to the homepage for simple tasks. This makes finding information quite difficult and oftentimes impossible to do unless I restart the system and do it all over again.

“Recommended for mobile physicians”

Pros

I’m a diehard Android fan-physician, and for reasons that are quite obvious to someone like me (I travel cross-borders, and so I need device/platform flexibility), I don’t have much use for the Apple device ecosystem. Since 2018, I was searching for a mobile EHR that worked well on Android. And after several trials with other vendors, I’m glad I ended up subscribing to Netsmart. The no-nonsense application interface, which makes patient data-keeping easy is also great!

Cons

It would’ve been super if the provider had offered a trial run on the software because it is a bit high on the cost (especially when compared with my previous subscriptions). All I got during onboarding was the demo.