Nick Szymanski is the CIO and VP at Signature Healthcare in Brockton, Massachusetts—a medical group and unaffiliated hospital with about 150 physicians and just over 200 beds.

Almost immediately upon his arrival in April 2020, Szymanski jumped in to lead a crew of about 50 IT and telecom staff members in an effort to set up a number of Covid testing tents—and all the tech inside them: the scheduling system, the management of electronic medical records (EMRs), and basically anything with electricity.

“We literally met as a team and said, ‘Okay, what spots are available to us? What schools or community areas? Where are we getting the materials from? And we’re gonna have this done in two days,’” Szymanski told IT Brew.

So, how’s the team in charge of holding up the infrastructure…holding up?

“They’re tired,” Szymanski said, putting it simply. “IT in itself is 24/7. And then you add healthcare, which is 24/7. So, you’re always on in some capacity.”

In a conversation with IT Brew, Szymanski talked about ways to provide relief to a crew that’s working around the clock, including one especially important practice: recognition.

Szymanski’s responses below have been edited for length and clarity.

What are the most tiring tasks for a healthcare IT staff?

When you say, “Okay, we have an eight-month project that’s going to do X, and we’re going to take a breather for a few weeks, and then we’re going to start another one,” they know that if it goes sideways at all, patient care might be impacted. Business operations could be impacted.

When the spotlight is on and it’s huge, that’s exhausting, because they’re still carrying the day-to-day, and you can’t forget about that. The doctors are still calling, saying, “I need help with this…”

Can you give me a glimpse of what those projects are?

We’re going to be moving and updating our email platform…We just moved our EMR into the cloud two weeks ago. That’s huge, right?

And then in the middle of all this, we’re actually going to be updating our EMR at least two more times throughout the course of the year. So that’s all new code, all new functionality. That’s testing. That’s educating the physicians, the nurses, everyone, that these are the new bells and whistles.

What are some structural or company-wide ways to encourage IT teams?

I think having IT leadership at the table with the rest of leadership, who can translate the importance and impact and benefit to what the team might have just done and what they’re looking to do, is huge.

Read more here.—BH

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected] or DM @BillyHurls on Twitter.

Microsoft, a company attempting to win regulatory approval for a merger with Activision and its newly unionized subsidiary, Raven Software, has promised it definitely won’t crack down on organizing workers with an iron fist or anything like that.

In a June 2 blog post, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and vice chair, announced the company has adopted four principles toward organizing—the foremost of which is recognition of the fact that workers have a “legal right to choose whether to form or join a union.” Other principles include commitments to listen to worker concerns, “creative and collaborative approaches when employees wish to exercise their rights” and when Microsoft is presented with a “specific unionization proposal,” and a “close relationship and shared partnership with all our employees, ​​including those represented by a union.”

Labor experts consulted by IT Brew were cautiously optimistic this could potentially mean Microsoft is breaking rank from some of their more heavy-handed brethren in an era where organized labor appears to finally be making inroads into white-collar tech fields. But they noted that talk is just that, given the long tradition of union-busting in corporate America.

Microsoft’s blog post is a “major step and very different from the reflexively anti-union comments and actions of its competitors,” Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus of education at UC Berkeley who specializes in labor and globalization, wrote to IT Brew via email. “That said, what’s critical is how the company translates this into reality. They’ve written a check, but it still needs their signature to cash it to the bank.”

Rebecca Givan, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relationswrote to IT Brew that Microsoft had made “some promises to which it can be held accountable. If Microsoft now spends money on union-busting in the face of a future attempt to organize a union, it will have to explain itself.”

“For now, Microsoft seems to be trying to set itself apart from most other employers, who are perfectly comfortable taking an explicitly anti-union stance,” Givan added.

Read more here.—TM

Do you work in IT or have information about your IT department you want to share? Email [email protected] or DM @thetomzone on Twitter. Want to go encrypted? Ask Tom for his Signal.

Today’s top IT reads.

Stat: Fall, 2024. That’s when electronics manufacturers like Apple that sell products in the EU must switch to a common charging port—in this case, USB-C—to minimize e-waste. (Wired)

Quote: “We’re excited about coming back in 2023 with both a digital and an in-person event.”—ESA President and CEO Stan Pierre-Louis on the company’s decision to cancel its annual game convention (the Washington Post)

Read: Google’s newest changes to Chrome’s handling of browser extensions have makers of ad blockers and privacy-related tools worried about possible stifling effects on innovation. (The Register)