The tele-intensive care unit during a disaster: seamless transition from routine operations to disaster mode.

Disaster plans, during the actual disaster, often do not function as conceived and designed. Disaster or emergency situations may not present as anticipated in planning sessions confounding the intent of disaster planners. Systems that are created and shelved awaiting the disaster may be dysfunctional when needed due to problems such as failed batteries, forgotten training, misplaced equipment, the retraining curve, or software that has not been updated. We report here the smooth and seamless transition to disaster mode from a system in daily use and therefore operational when needed.