Hospitals Ordered to Bypass CDC, Send COVID-19 Data to Washington

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a notice ordering hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and send all COVID-19 patient data to a centralized database effective July 15, 2020. The directive has raised concerns about transparency and public access to data. According to the order, HHS, and not CDC, will now collect daily reports about COVID-19 patients being treated at each hospital, the number of beds and ventilators available, and other information related to tracking and monitoring the pandemic. The new guidance also states that if hospitals were reporting this information to their states, they “may be relieved from reporting directly to the Federal Government if they receive a written release from the State stating that the State will collect the data from the hospitals and take over Federal reporting responsibilities.” It is not clear if the new centralized HHS database — managed by TeleTracking, a Pittsburgh-based health data firm — will be open to the public, according to the New York Times. This could impact the work of researchers, modelers, and health officials who currently rely on CDC data to make projections and important decisions regarding the ongoing health crisis. Questions have also been raised about whether the contract to TeleTracking was properly awarded. “Given the importance of collecting this data as quickly as possible, I have several questions about the Trump ...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news