White House Strips CDC Of Data Collection Role For COVID-19 Hospitalizations

Considering the history of the Trump administration's handling of the Covid-19 problem, it is reasonable to suspect that they want more control of the information in order to bend the facts to their desires.

Are we going to find ties from the private contractor who got the contract w/o a bid and the Trump administration?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/15/891351706/white-house-strips-cdc-of-data-collection-role-for-covid-19-hospitalizations


Pien Huang
Selena Simmons-Duffin
July 15, 20201:31 PM ET


The Trump Administration has mandated that hospitals sidestep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send critical information about COVID-19 hospitalizations and equipment to a different federal database.

From the start of the pandemic, the CDC has collected data on COVID-19 hospitalizations, availability of intensive care beds and personal protective equipment. But hospitals must now report that information to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

The change sparked concerns among infectious disease and health care experts that the administration was hobbling the ability of the nation's public health agency to gather and analyze crucial data in the midst of a pandemic.

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Since March, hospitals have reported daily information on the availability of hospital beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment to an established data collection network run by CDC called the National Healthcare Safety Network or NHSN, which has operated for years.

As of Wednesday, July 15, hospitals are being instructed by HHS to shelve that system, and instead to report to a new site set up by HHS using a private contractor.

Pollock of CDC says switching to this new platform disregards the relationships with hospitals CDC has developed over the years, since it has "been stood up relatively recently" and adds that it also lacks "the track record and the expertise that we're able to provide."

The new system was set up by TeleTracking, a private company based in Pennsylvania, which was awarded the $10 million contract in a non-competitive bid in April. In June, Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate health committee wrote a letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield, asking why TeleTracking was awarded the contract on a non-competitive basis.

"It's entirely unclear why the Trump Administration has asked states and hospitals to upend their reporting systems in the middle of a pandemic — in 48 hours nonetheless — without a single explanation as to why this new system is better or necessary," Murray wrote in a statement to NPR. "The Trump Administration is going to have to give a full justification for this, because until they do, it's hard to see how this step won't further sideline public health experts and obscure the severity of this crisis."

Hospitals have left been scrambling, given only a few days to prepare for the new reporting system.

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On Monday, an email flagged "Special Bulletin" from the American Hospital Association and obtained by NPR, informed hospitals of the data reporting change, and indicated that distribution of remdesivir, a drug that's been used to treat hospitalized COVID patients, would be tied to the daily data reported into the TeleTracking portal. "The daily reporting is the only mechanism used for the [remdesivir] calculations," the email from AHA reads.

HHS could not immediately confirm if failure to switch to the new HHS system means that a hospital will no longer get this key drug therapy from the federal government.

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