I am both the SQL Server administrator and the System Administrator for an Electronic Medical Records system we are just starting to go live with at the Non-Profit Drug and Alcohol Treatment company I work for.

We need to have this system up 24\7 since it is going to be used for entering patient clinical records.

Having an IPad, especially with a copy of SQL Monitor running on our server, would allow me to monitor our database and application both at work and at home, and possibly even fix problems before users became aware of them, especially since I would put an RDP client on the Ipad.

I am currently teaching myself IPhone programming and if I had an IPad I would add programming for that to my learning list. I would then be able to write custom apps to be used for my work which would allow me to diagnose and fix common problems we have, usually records that are marked as locked internally by the software when they shouldn't be.

I would also be able to build sample apps for use by our clinicians as part of convincing people here to but IPads for use by clinicians in the field. This would be especially useful for our clinicians who have to do bed checks on our clients every hour, as right now they have to do these on paper and then come back and enter the data in the computer.

There are two people in our IT department (small company) and one of us needs to be essentially on call at all times now that we are going fully electronic with the medical records. Carrying a laptop is just not practical to do all the time, but an IPad is small and light enough to be thrown in the diaper bag with my 10 week old little boys diapers and cloths and my 2 year old little girl's stuff as well. My IPhone has too small a screen to do real work on, but the IPad would be just big enough, and in the city one is never more than a couple miles from an open wifi connection (Mc'Ds if nothing else is available.) So I would be able to have a normal life with my family while still being available to fix problems at work if an emergency comes up. (I have the LogMeIn app for my IPhone and this would work on the IPad as well so I would be able to have secure remote access to my home computer and through that and the VPN, access to my work computer.)