I read the HHS statement that Jan Galkowski included in his message, and it appears the stated purpose of the procedure was to reduce duplication of reporting efforts. Here are the first two paragraphs of that document:
"On March 29, 2020, Vice President Pence sent a letter to hospital administrators across the
country requesting daily data reports on testing, capacity and utilization, and patient flows to
facilitate the public health response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Many separate
governmental entities are requesting similar information, resulting in stakeholder requests to
reduce duplication and minimize reporting burden. This document details the Federal
Government's data needs, explains the division of reporting responsibility between hospitals
and states, and provides clear, flexible options for the timely delivery of this critical
information. The objective is to allow states and hospitals either to leverage existing data
reporting capabilities or, where those capabilities are insufficient, to provide guidance in how
to build upon existing capabilities. These FAQs will be posted to the various HHS and HHS
division websites, and will be as necessary.
"It is critical to the COVID-19 response that all of the information listed below is provided on a
daily basis to the Federal Government to facilitate planning, monitoring, and resource
allocation during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). This data will be used to inform
decisions at the federal level, such as allocation of supplies, treatments, and other resources.
We will no longer be sending out one-time requests for data to aid in the distribution of Remdesivir or
any other treatments or supplies. This daily reporting is the only mechanism used for the distribution
calculations, and the daily is needed daily to ensure accurate calculations."
While it appears that much is being read into this document, its purpose is to streamline the reporting. I would recommend that people read the documents themselves before rushing to judgment. CDC is itself under the umbrella of HHS, so I don't see how this will reduce the data available to the CDC. Am I missing something?
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Raoul Burchette
Biostatistician
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2020 20:52
From: Steve Pierson
Subject: HHS directing hospitals to cease sending data to CDC
Dear All,
In addition to the ASA board statement shared earlier today, the ASA has signed onto a multi-society letter on this issue. If you belong to other professional associations, you could encourage them to also sign on:
I wanted to share this sign-on letter opportunity with you regarding the recent decision to bypass CDC in the collection of of COVID-19 patient data - deadline is tomorrow, Friday, July 17 at 3pm ET.
Protect COVID-19 Patient Data Collection: The Infectious Diseases Society of America, HIV Medicine Association, American Society for Microbiology and American Public Health Association are circulating
this letter urging the administration to reverse its decision to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the collection of COVID-19 patient data. The letter urges the administration not to bypass the CDC to maintain the integrity of COVID-19 data, to keep public health data public, to invest in data reporting at the CDC and highlights the importance of the data to inform state and jurisdictional responses. Please complete
this form to endorse the letter by
Friday, July 17 at 3 pm ET.
Best,
Steve
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Steve Pierson
Director of Science Policy
American Statistical Association
Original Message:
Sent: 07-14-2020 19:19
From: Jan Galkowski
Subject: HHS directing hospitals to cease sending data to CDC
In a recent letter, HHS has directed hospitals to send specific datasets directly to an HHS database rather than CDC. This was reported by The New York Times.
Having multiple groups look at and use the same dataset is always better. I do not see anything in the letter which suggests hospitals cannot report data elsewhere. Indeed, once the collecting and formatting is done, sending a file to multiple places periodically is just a cron job.
But I am concerned, because if there is any suggestion these data not be sent anywhere else, we may be seeing a politically motivated emergence of what was done with environmental and climate change related data at the beginning of this Executive, something which I, with a big team of others, tried to anticipate and deflect.
Anyone heard any more?
-- Jan
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Jan Galkowski
Westwood, MA 02090
bayesianlogic.1@gmail.com
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