U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar speaks after a briefing by the White House Coronavirus Task Force at the Department of Health and Human Services on June 26, 2020 in Washington, DC .
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The Trump administration revealed a new Covid-19 hospitalization data website Monday, which authorities say offers a more complete picture of the outbreak than data previously collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The administration instructed hospitals last week to stop reporting to the CDC’s National Health Safety Network, which provides officials “with the data necessary to identify problem areas, measure the progress of prevention efforts, and ultimately eliminate health care-associated infections. ” Instead, hospitals were ordered to report such data through a new portal with the Department of Health and Human Services.
Authorities said a decision was made to streamline the data reporting and provide HHS officials with real-time data used to make decisions, such as how to distribute the scant supply of Covid-19 treatment remdesivir across the country. Former health officials who spoke to CNBC said there was a need to overhaul the CDC system, but acknowledged that the agency’s change of control amid a public health crisis raises some red flags.
José Arrieta, HHS chief information officer, said Monday in a conference call with journalists that the CDC reporting system only collected data from about 3,000 of the country’s approximately 6,200 hospitals. The new HHS system collects data from approximately 4,500 hospitals on most days, he added.
“We are showing you a dataset that is more robust and has more coverage than anything we have published, historically, before,” he said. “Data is the most important thing to be able to respond and we want to create a national discussion on the importance of data exchange to respond to a pandemic like Covid-19.”
Arrieta added that the publicly available HHS portal uses the same “predictive models” that had been used by CDC to analyze the raw data collected. She said the raw data will also be available for hospitals to download and add to their own dashboards and analyzes if they so choose. She said that at least some of the raw data will be available to the public, including third-party researchers.
“We believe that this level of transparency will not only help create and develop some of the scientific minds of the future, but it will create maximum transparency for American citizens if they want to enter and view the data for themselves,” he said. .
To access some data sets, such as those provided by the CDC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or by private companies, individuals will have to undergo an authentication process, so that HHS knows who is accessing the data, he said. Arrieta. She added that the agency will implement a “time series” feature in the coming weeks, so that users can see what HHS did with the data it collected.
When the administration announced the plan last week to shift control of hospital data from CDC to HHS, it sparked protests from governors, some politicians and former CDC officials who expressed concern that the move would be a burden. bureaucratic for hospitals and would bypass CDC. . Officials emphasized that CDC would continue to be involved in the United States’ response efforts and retain access to the data.
However, some data portals quietly disappeared from the CDC website after the policy went into effect and were only restored with outdated information after CNBC and others reported the move. Later last week, the National Association of Governors called for the policy change to be delayed so that states and officials have time to prepare for the transition to the new portal. Other politicians called for the policy change to be completely reversed.
“We realize this is a change and every time there is a change, it obviously creates a little bit of tension,” Arrieta said Monday, “maybe a little pain for the transition.”
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