HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Memorial Hospital Authority information technology and communications department has not seen any change to the positions in the staffing pattern and, according to a hospital official, the creation of 23 new positions is needed to bring the department up to standards.
“As the hospital has grown, the IT department has not followed suit. We do have an increase in users and applications to support, but the IT staffing has remained the same over the years,” Rachel Manglona, assistant hospital IT administrator, told the board.
Consideration was given to hospital growth, the changing technology landscape and retention in identifying the staffing need.
“We also have a change in the landscape. More things are pivoting towards (the) cloud, moving away from manual to computer-based. And then we are also seeing new fields of technology in health care pop up, particularly with informatics. There’s an increase for the need of cybersecurity and resiliency as more applications rely on technology. We do need to shore up our IT infrastructure in order to prepare for disasters, whether they be technological or environmental,” Manglona said.
Currently, there are two main IT teams at the hospital, IT Support Services and System Support Services. The new positions would add two more teams to the department.
“We are adding a network and infrastructure team, in order to help shore up our IT infrastructure since that is the backbone of everything. We are adding the information security team to help manage and look out for our cybersecurity in terms of preventing ransomware and things like that but also to improve our auditing practices,” Manglona said.
The goal is to staff the IT department 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with three employees on the schedule for redundancy. Currently, the IT department has enough personnel to staff one person on any given shift.
“That’s not how we currently staff. We have multiple people during the day, and then we have (a) swing shift at night (that) is on-call. So there’s no one in the hospital at that time. We would like to have at least two people at night in the hospital to respond to any incidents,” Manglona said.
She said it would cost $4 million to fund the 23 positions.
The 23 new positions, if approved, would need to be funded through the fiscal year 2025 budget.
Currently, there are five full-time employee positions covered in the existing budget that are vacant.
“We are actively looking. We had a round of interviews today for some of the roles,” Manglona said.
With the funding for the 23 new positions not secured, board members were cautious about not wanting to vote on the matter.
“They are not in direct contact with what our goals are for the hospital. I know that we want approval for all of these positions, but I feel like we need to socialize this more with the board,” trustee Sharon Davis said.
She wanted more details about additions and subtractions to the IT work structure.
“Adding 23 again to (a) non-front-facing (department) serving hospital patients is really hard to love, especially when we are in the situation we are financially. What you’re asking us to do is bless a work structure for 2025, which we don’t even know if we have funding yet,” Davis said.
GMH’s IT infrastructure has reportedly remained the same for the last 20 to 30 years, according to hospital staff nurse Aida Corell, who supported the development of the IT infrastructure – but not all at once.
“It probably should have been done. … It should have been built up,” Corell said. “I understand the hesitance. Twenty-three positions, one shot, is a lot. Maybe we can look at five for now or two to three for now.”
Instead of voting on the creation of the positions, the board decided to meet again on the IT restructure issue to see what options are available.
GMHA Administrator Lillian Perez-Posadas reminded the board that GMHA would submit its fiscal year 2025 budget request in March to the Legislature.
The push for the IT restructure comes after the hospital experienced the “unauthorized access” incident that prompted the GMHA to shut down its network in March 2023. The hospital’s interconnected computer systems were put at risk in the cyberattack.
The Guam Memorial Hospital in Tamuning on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024.
