COVID-19 Proves Need for National Health IT Infrastructure

May 21, 2020 - The spread of COVID-19 illustrates the need for a national health information technology infrastructure, according to an article published in JAMA.

To help curb the pandemic, health organizations and researchers need timely, accurate, and reliable health information.

Specific to the current case of coronavirus, researchers need to know how many individuals tested positive for COVID-19, demographic data from those individuals, the number of individuals who are seen at health facilities, how many were hospitalized and how they were taken care of, and the length of the hospital stay.

Vice President Mike Pence and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), requested hospitals report COVID-19 testing data directly to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Since private and commercial laboratories already report their findings, Pence asked all hospitals that are performing “in-house” or onsite testing to report testing data to HHS each day.