HHS tacked another six months onto its contract with TeleTracking technologies for the collection of COVID-19 hospital data, according to an April 6 news release.
HHS signed a six-month, $10.2 million contract with TeleTracking in April 2020 to create the data collection system for COVID-19 information. The agency then signed another six-month extension with the company in October.
HHS' process used to award the initial contract to TeleTracking was previously under scrutiny and had initially been described as a sole-source contract, according to NPR. The department later issued an update to say the contract was competitive and HHS selected TeleTracking after accepting bids from six unnamed competitors.
TeleTracking supports hospital and health system reporting on capacity, hospitalization levels, personal protective equipment supplies, therapeutics usage, vaccinations and staffing information to the federal government to manage where and how to distribute supplies during the pandemic.