“The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created a new data system in April 2020 to deal with collecting data on whether hospitals have enough beds and supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, during the pandemic, HHS changed its data collection methods and requirements – making it difficult for hospitals to report data.”
“HHS Protect, the ecosystem detailed in a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, captures national- and state-level data on inpatient and intensive care beds in use, personal protective equipment (PPE), and COVID-19 treatments.”
“HHS has changed the way that data can be reported to HHS Protect, along with the reporting requirements, which were done to ‘capture more complete data and to capture more information, such as data on influenza-related hospitalizations and COVID-19 vaccines administered.'”
“’Reporting entities said they experienced multiple challenges implementing the changes, including a lack of clarity on the requirements and logistical challenges such as having to adapt their systems to provide the data,’ wrote GAO. ‘As HHS made changes, HHS issued updated guidance to clarify reporting requirements.'”
“According to GAO, HHS uses hospital capacity data to address resource shortages to inform the public. However, public health stakeholders said they rely on state and local data for case investigation because they contained more detailed information and did not use HHS Protect data on hospital capacity…” Read the full article here.
Source: HHS COVID-19 Data Collection System Causing Reporting Difficulties – By Jordan Smith, August 6, 2021. MeriTalk.
