Hospitalizations underreported in New Mexico
Hospitals struggle with data amid new procedures from feds
New Mexico’s hospitals are significantly underreporting data to the federal government on the number of COVID-19 patients admitted to their facilities as they struggle to adapt to changes in reporting procedures required by Washington.
During the week of July 18-24, only 43 percent of the state’s hospitals reported the number of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients who were hospitalized on a daily basis, according to a July 26 coronavirus report released by the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force.
New Mexico officials said Wednesday the lack of reporting occurred as the state “had a significant change to our reporting system” in order to collect new information required by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“This significant change created a data entry issue at the local hospital level with many facilities not reporting all new data fields initially,” state Department of Health spokesman David Morgan said.
State officials said the data breakdown was caused by U.S. Health and Human Services’ recent decision to instruct hospitals across the country to stop sending information about their coronavirus patients to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and instead to report to a new HHS portal.
The White House’s coronavirus report, which was sent to state governments and was published by the New York Times, said the lapse in reporting could cause an “underestimate of the actual total number of COVID-related hospitalizations.”
It added “underreporting may lead to a lower allocation of critical supplies.”
When asked whether the data breakdown affected the hospitalization numbers New Mexico releases to the public on a daily basis, state officials did not respond.
It also was unclear whether the issue has affected the state’s “gating criteria,” which state officials use to make coronavirus-related policy decisions about reopening the economy.
When asked these questions Wednesday, the Health Department referred them to a
spokeswoman for the state’s Human Services Department, who did not respond to requests for comment.
The Health Department did say the data it receives from New Mexico hospitals is the same information those hospitals report to the federal government.
The Health Department reported 174 COVID-19 hospitalizations July 15 when the Trump administration’s change became effective. That number fell to 161 by July 19 and was 158 Wednesday.
There were 255 total intensive care units occupied in the state as of July 23, lower than the 261 occupied units reported on July 9, said Human Services Secretary David Scrase.
New Mexico isn’t the only state that has had trouble adapting to the federal change in reporting procedures. Missouri and its hospital association, for instance, said its hospitalization data would remain unavailable for the July 18-24 period because of the issue.
Missouri’s coronavirus dashboard issued the following warning: “Please note, due to an abrupt change in data measures and the reporting platform issued by the White House on Monday, July 13, and effective Wednesday, July 15, Missouri Hospital Association and the State of Missouri were unable to access hospitalization data that met quality standards during the transition.”
But other states have had more success migrating to the new federal system than New Mexico.
In Arizona, 74 percent of hospitals reported daily during the July 18-24 period, while 78 percent of Utah hospitals were sending the information, according to the report.
It also was unclear which New Mexico hospitals failed to report the information, as the Health Department declined to specify which facilities had not done so.
Presbyterian Healthcare Services, Lovelace Health System and Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center said Wednesday they had fully reported hospitalization information to federal and state officials.
“All Presbyterian facilities reported hospitalization data into both the state and federal databases,” said Presbyterian spokeswoman
Melanie Mozes.
Monica Leyba, chief nurse executive at Christus St. Vincent, said she didn’t believe the underreporting of hospitalizations in New Mexico would affect her hospital’s ability to make decisions regarding its COVID-19 response.
“Christus St. Vincent closely monitors COVID-19 rates in the community, based on our testing and others, monitoring the landscape so that we always have a sense of potential hospitalizations,” she said.
Leyba added the hospital recently has seen lower numbers of COVID-19 patients in intensive care and currently only has two patients in its segregated COVID unit.
The Health Department said it has been helping train staff at hospitals across the state to enter COVID-19 information correctly into the federal portal and has been educating them on data collection.
The state has relayed the problems to federal officials and is working with the New Mexico Hospital Association “in understanding the significant reporting burden this amount of daily data requirement has placed on patient care facilities,” Morgan said.