CIOs are trading best practices during the pandemic: 4 insights

CIOs from across industries at competing companies and organizations are coming together to share best practices for IT during the pandemic.

A report from The Wall Street Journal examines the partnerships between Google and Apple as well as how Cisco has worked with others to boost network capacity as users of its Webex platform have drastically increased over the past few months. Many companies and healthcare organizations are using the platform for videoconferences and meetings as well as trainings while employees are social distancing.

Four things to know:

1. Jacqueline Guichelaar, senior vice president and CIO of Cisco Systems, said the company is sharing "anything and everything" during the pandemic. She said organizations can employ load-balancing tactics to make sure they direct bandwidth to the most important functions.

The company also published software online for companies to construct a remote worker call center services and is staggering engineer shifts for those who need to be onsite for maintenance work.

2. CIOs are facing challenges during the pandemic that include rapidly deploying large-scale remote work capabilities as well as re-planning their IT spend and updating budget forecasts. Hospital and health system CIOs report there are some projects they are delaying for a few months, including EHR deployments, and other non-critical projects will be canceled all together.

Through these common challenges, Sunny Gupta, a board member of the Technology Business Management Council, told WSJ that he has noticed an "unprecedented level of peer-to-peer support" during this time.

3. The remote work shift can create logistical and security issues, which healthcare CIOs are troubleshooting alongside their counterparts in the government, public safety, transportation and other industries. CIOs and IT leaders in Tennessee have held conference calls to discuss the best approach for overcoming these issues and continue to meet weekly whereas they met once per quarter before the pandemic.

In Florida, 51 hospitals, including AdventHealth and Tampa General Hospital, are also working together on a COVID-19 data exchange.

4. Healthcare CIOs have also been willing to share their strategies for success during the pandemic, as well as preparations for recovery. Hospitals and health systems from around the U.S. shared with Becker's how they are moving forward with IT projects in this article, and outlined the projects on hold in this article.