ABSTRACT
The original request to perform a pilot study on tablet devices in a clinical setting was made by physicians and nurses in the surgical intensive care unit (SICU). Several SICU clinical staff served on the health system’s clinical informatics teams and were familiar with the clinical workflows because of their participation in the design and build of the electronic medical record (EMR) system. Other team members included representatives from nursing informatics, anesthesia informatics, server support, desktop, network and information security. The health system architecture underwent a major upgrade prior to its EMR rollout in 2008. With the substantial investment in equipment to support clinical systems and the drain on datacenter resources, the health system made the choice to adopt virtual technologies.
