This archive report was first published on 24 August 2020.
Billions in Hospital Virus Aid Rested on Compliance With Private Vendor ¶
On April 21, the Trump administration instructed hospitals to make a one-time report of their Covid-19 admissions and intensive care unit beds to TeleTracking Technologies, a company in Pittsburgh, as a prerequisite to receiving targeted Relief Fund payments.
The financial condition applied to money from a $100 billion 'coronavirus provider relief fund' established by Congress as part of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, signed by President Trump on March 27.
According to an email obtained by The New York Times, the office of the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, instructed hospitals to submit the data to TeleTracking, stating: 'Please be aware that submitting this data will inform the decision-making on targeted Relief Fund payments and is a prerequisite to payment.'
However, critics remain alarmed, with Senator Patty Murray of Washington saying: 'In the middle of a pandemic, the Trump administration is using funds meant to support hospitals as a tool to coerce them to use an unproven, untrusted and deeply flawed system that sidelines public health experts.'
Public health experts and hospital executives are puzzled as to why the health agency chose such a difficult time to employ an untested private vendor rather than improve the C.D.C.'s National Healthcare Safety Network, a decades-old disease tracking system.
Accurate hospital data is essential to tracking the pandemic and guiding government decisions about how to distribute scarce resources, like ventilators and the drug remdesivir.
