CDC to regain control of hospital pandemic data despite criticism

TeleTracking Technologies has gathered and reported COVID-19 hospitalization data since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, but that responsibility will return to the CDC later this year, Bloomberg reported Aug. 12.

TeleTracking's contract with the federal government expires Dec. 31, and the U.S. does not plan to renew. Instead, the government will require hospitals to begin reporting COVID-19 data to the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network in mid-December, a move hospital systems and organizations have criticized. Over the last two years, TeleTracking has received more than $50 million to collect hospital data.

The federal government pitched plans for the CDC to potentially take back hospital infectious disease data collection in March. Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, the California Hospital Association and the Greater New York Hospital Association were critical of the move in comments to CMS.

The Greater New York Hospital Association wrote that changing the technologies would be "disruptive" for hospitals.

However, CMS cemented plans for data tracking to return to the CDC within the 2023 Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System final rule issued in early August.

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