Murray Demands Transparency On Trump Administration Move to Upend COVID-19 Data Collection

Senator Murray: “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.”

Murray wrote to the Administration in June questioning the decision to offer a non-competitive, multimillion dollar contract to build a duplicative data system—the one now being used displace CDC from data collection

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement in response to news the White House is instructing hospitals to report data to a new system it set up instead of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), which is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and which states and hospitals have a long track record of reporting and accessing data through.

“CDC has had a system in place for over a decade to track infection data, and hospitals and states know and trust this system—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. The Trump Administration is going to have to give a full justification for this, because until they do, it’s hard to see how this step won’t further sideline public health experts and obscure the severity of this crisis.”

In June, Senator Murray wrote to the Administration questioning the decision to offer a non-competitive, multimillion dollar contract for a seemingly duplicative data collection system, the same system which the Administration in now demanding hospitals switch to.

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