‘Sole source’ draws scrutiny
COVID-19 database contract draws criticism, concern from congressional Democrats
A $10.2 million “sole source” contract to run a centralized COVID-19 database for the Trump administration drew sharp criticism Wednesday from congressional Democrats, who demanded that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention be reinstated as the primary repository of coronavirus data.
The contract drew scant public attention when it was awarded in April to Teletracking Technologies, a Pittsburgh company whose core business is helping hospitals manage the f low of patients. But it drew scrutiny after the administration ordered hospitals on Tuesday to report coronavirus information, including bed availability, to the new database, housed at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, instead of to the CDC.
Two top federal health officials — Dr. Robert Redfield, the CDC director, and José Arrieta, the chief information officer for the Department of Health and Human Services — defended the decision in a conference call with reporters, saying that the new database was necessary to expedite and streamline data, which is used to help the government make decisions about where to deploy personal protective gear or medicine.
Redfield said CDC experts would still have access to the data. “This access is the same today as it was yesterday,” he said.
But the officials had no explanation for the Teletracking contract, which was awarded on a sole-source basis, federal records show. Arrieta said he was not involved in the contract negotiations. The company did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the senior Democrat on the Senate health panel, has been seeking an explanation for the contract, which she argues is duplicative because the CDC already has its own datagathering system, the National Healthcare Safety Network.
“CDC has had a system in place for over a decade to track infection data, and hospitals and states know and trust this system,” Murray said Wednesday in a statement. “So it’s entirely unclear why the Trump administration has asked states and hospitals to upend their reporting systems in the middle of a pandemic — in 48 hours nonetheless — without a single explanation as to why this new system is better or necessary.”
Another top Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, told reporters in Hoboken that if the administration did not reverse itself and put the CDC back in charge, “we will look at withholding funding until the administration changes course.”
The switch in reporting exposed deep f laws in the way the government collects health data, and the CDC has been no stranger to criticism. Congress has long been asking the agency to modernize its data collection, and passed laws in 2006, 2013 and 2019 requiring a system that could collect data in near-real time.
The CDC has yet to establish such a system, which would spare hospital employees from having to enter data manually. But the Teletracking system also requires manual entry, said Dr. Lissy Hu, the chief executive of Careport Health, a technology firm. She said the new arrangement made little sense.
“This whole thing is bizarre,” she said. “The White House is saying collecting real-time information is problematic, and I agree with that. But with Teletracking, it’s still going to be manual entry, so how is that better than the current manual entry system?”
Addressing concerns about transparency, Arrieta said the Department of Health and Human Services was considering giving members of Congress access to the new database and was “exploring the best way” to make information available to the public.