My dad has a similar job: help keep up the system for health care facilities. But, seriously, he has a Blackberry and a second PDA/phone all the damn time. On our last family vacation, several years ago, I threatened to throw his toys in the ocean if he brought them (we went to Hawaii). He got the hint.

At least in my experience (I was cross trained as a unit secretary at an ER), if the computer goes down, it just means more paperwork. We go right back to the "old" system: phone, carbon copies, and pens.

No matter how essential one person may be, there's always someone else that can do the job. That person got trained somehow.