New federal COVID-19 reporting system stresses some hospitals

A new system for tracking COVID-19 hospitalization data is creating problems for hospitals, which must enter their data manually. “We have not had the ramp-up period to encourage hospitals to engage in this,” Dave Dillon, vice president public and media relations at the Missouri Hospital Association told Marketplace. As recently as last week, hospitals were reporting on COVID-19 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The administration’s decision to shift data collection to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sparked concern because the HHS database—HHS Protects—is run by a private contractor and not accessible to the public. (Marketplace story, 7/21/20)