HHS, not CDC, will collect reports on COVID-19 patients

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directed hospitals to stop sending data on COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week. Instead, health care utilization data related to the pandemic will reside at HHS. The shift raised alarms among public health experts who have concerns about continued public access to the data. The new database will be managed by a private, Pittsburgh-based firm, TeleTracking, which was awarded the contract in a noncompetitive process. While many agree there is room for improvement in how the government collects data, a spokeswoman for the Texas Hospital Association expressed concern, saying frequent shifts in federal reporting guidance are especially burdensome while hospitals are battling the pandemic. The HHS directive also asked hospitals to prioritize data fields that can inform the national distribution of remdesivir. (New York Times story, 7/14/20)