Quality & Governance News

HHS Provides $186M for COVID-19 Data Surveillance, Tracking

The funding will provide additional resources to support state and local jurisdictions in tracking data related to COVID-19.

HHS provides $186 million for COVID-19 data surveillance, tracking

Source: Thinkstock

By Jessica Kent

- The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is providing $186,000,000 in funding to state and local jurisdictions to support expanded COVID-19 data surveillance and tracking.

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The supplemental funding will help support the nation’s response to the global pandemic.

“Testing and surveillance is a vital piece of our efforts to beat the coronavirus, and this new funding will expand our ability to track and prevent the virus’s spread across the country,” said HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

“State and local public health departments are on the frontlines of our fight against the pandemic, and these new resources will help them build the testing and surveillance capabilities needed to beat the new threat we face.”

The funding will help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) support public health initiatives and programs. The grant will allow the CDC to supplement an existing cooperative agreement to multiple states and local jurisdictions identified as having the highest number of reported COVID-19 cases, and jurisdictions with accelerating or rapidly accelerating COVID-19 cases.

The funding will support a range of activities including lab equipment, supplies, staffing, shipping, infection control, surge staffing, monitoring of individuals, and data management.

Additionally, the award will help the CDC supplement an existing agreement to state jurisdictions through the Emerging Infections Program (EIP) to enhance surveillance capabilities. Activities will include investigating and assessing the burden and severity of COVID-19, evaluating and determining risk factors and outcomes, and planning and implementing prevention strategies.

These activities will build on existing programs that were developed for influenza and other respiratory pathogens. The CDC will also use funds to assess and evaluate exposed or infected healthcare personnel through clinical interviews to better identify risk factors and protective factors for COVID-19 infection.

To access this initial funding, CDC will use existing networks to reach out to state and local jurisdictions.

The US government has highlighted the role of data collection and analytics in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy recently issued a call for the nation’s AI experts to build artificial intelligence tools that can be applied to a COVID-19 dataset.

“Decisive action from America’s science and technology enterprise is critical to prevent, detect, treat, and develop solutions to COVID-19. The White House will continue to be a strong partner in this all hands-on-deck approach,” said Michael Kratsios, US Chief Technology Officer, the White House.

“We thank each institution for voluntarily lending its expertise and innovation to this collaborative effort, and call on the United States research community to put artificial intelligence technologies to work in answering key scientific questions about the novel coronavirus.”

With this funding, HHS and CDC will aim to expand the nation’s data tracking and surveillance capabilities to reduce the impact of coronavirus.

“Increasing the capacity of our nation’s public health infrastructure is critical to stopping the spread of COVID-19 in communities across this country,” said CDC Director Robert R. Redfield, MD.

“These funds will augment core public health capabilities including surveillance and predictive analytics, laboratory capacity, qualified frontline deployers, and the ability to rapidly respond to emerging disease clusters in communities that currently have limited person to person spread of the virus.”