Mercy Technology Services, days 1-7

Day 1 (May 12^th):

Today was my first day of my May Project (assisting Mercy Technology Services in the Operations Department of Mercy Hospital). The building I’m in, interestingly, has almost nothing to do with medicine. Situated right next to Laumeier Sculpture Park, the large building is comprised of a seemingly endless number of different work groups working on different things for the company. There are people working on telecommunication, computer and internet security, software, networking, websites, and dozens of other things I didn’t see and/or can’t remember.

A Mercy Technology Services depot is located in the basement of the humongous building (where I am to work). Centered out of a large garage with more electrical, computer, and printer equipment than I can even count, Mercy Technology Services is responsible for maintaining essentially every company computer in St. Louis. This is where most user computer and software issues, hardware issues, and network issues are processed and resolved. It seems like field technicians are constantly filtering in and out picking up and dropping off different orders. Mercy Technology Services, although not directly involved with any medical tasks, directly affects patient care and medical services. The department’s prime responsibility is to maintain the computer systems at Mercy Hospital locations, behind the scenes, so that patients remain unaffected by the constant stream of technical issues associated with any large company.

For the first day on the job I “built” desktop computers (installed the special Mercy version of the Windows XP operating system, downloaded software, and connected each computer to the Mercy mainframe). These now task ready computers can be put into use as replacement computers in essentially any Mercy Hospital location. I also assisted in a few minor tasks such as moving electrical equipment and organizing the depot.

Day 2 (May 13^th)

            Mercy Hospital is in the process of upgrading their current, company wide use of the Windows XP operating system to Windows 7. This is, quite surprisingly, a massive task. The Windows XP operating system has remained in use so long because a lot of the essential computer programs used by Mercy Hospital employees (especially doctors and nurses) are on Windows XP. Therefore, in order to upgrade to Windows 7 it is essential that the same programs or equivalent programs are found and tested to work with Mercy Hospital’s servers, old hardware, and old software. The actual implementation of this upgrade then takes a period of several months in which each computer is re-imaged or cloned to the Windows 7 operating system and fitted with the exact programs required for the computers specified purpose. In order to facilitate this large transition (which is being called the “Windows 7 Project”), Mercy Technology Services is required to conduct a large scale inventory of every important electrical device in each of their facilities. This inventory essentially consists of Mercy Technology Services personnel going office by office scanning serial numbers, scanning asset tags (Mercy Hospital’s own type of serial number that helps document the device within Mercy’s system), taking names, taking phone numbers, an more.

The inventory took the entire day. While a set of 5 different teams worked in different areas of the building doing the actual inventory, I collected old or unused equipment and returned it to the depot for decommissioning, refurbishing, or reassignment.

Day 3 (May 14^th)

            The inventory remained uncompleted so the day was filled with, of course, finishing it. 3 different teams this time were assembled to finishing a much smaller area of the building. I worked on one of these teams, inputting the data from the inventory into an excel sheet.

Day 4 (May 15^th)

            The physical part of the inventory was completed (walking from office to office collecting data) but the excel sheets mostly remained uncompleted. Oftentimes an asset tag could be found but no serial numbers (or vice versa), phone numbers could not be found, names could not be found, etc. Using one of the Mercy Technology Services tools called PATR and another one called Jabber, I looked up the missing information and filled in the gaps in the excel sheets. I also spent part of the day assisting with packing, labeling, and shipping different types of electrical equipment.

Day 5 (May 16^th)

            The excel sheets for the inventory STILL remained incomplete. I spent most of the day trying to fix the inventory excel sheet from a different group (which was difficult because a lot of the inputted information was incorrect or added incorrectly). I also spent part of the day again assisting with packing, labeling, and shipping.

Day 6 (May 19^th)

            I spent the day assisting with the normal day to day tasks of the Mercy Technology Services team I have been working with. I again helped a little with packing, labeling, and shipping but also assisted in completing different work orders. I helped troubleshoot an issue with a usb port, respond to a network change request by the security team, and re-image (re-install the operating system) and clone a number of computers.

Day 7 (May 20^th)

            Today I again helped fill a number of work orders and shipping. I re-imaged a set of 4 different laptop computers to be used as loaner laptops in a Mercy Hospital clinic and loaded, wrapped, labeled, and moved a pallet to the loading dock. Also, on a more comical note, I helped play a prank on a fellow employee by decorating his monitor with flowers and peace signs.