This post has been archived and contains information that may be out of date.
On April 11, the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced that states can now submit federally requested COVID-19 data on behalf of hospitals through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) module. To facilitate the data transfer, CHA worked with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to update the COVID-19 Tracking Tool to incorporate the data elements requested by the federal government. As a result, hospitals are no longer required to submit this data through the NHSN module, as indicated in the CDPH All Facilities Letter.
The significant changes to the COVID-19 Tracking Tool are:
- Removed fields pertaining to ECMO, emergency department (ED) volume, and telemetry
- Added federally requested fields related to hospital onset, death, ED/overflow COVID-19 patients, and ventilated COVID-19 patients
- Modified definitions of ICU (includes NICU/PICU), surge capacity, hospital beds, and hospitalized COVID-19 patients (inpatients and ED patients are now recorded separately)
To ensure consistent reporting across the state, the instructions have been updated and a data dictionary has been created. Hospitals are encouraged to review the data dictionary in its entirety before inputting data into the updated COVID-19 Tracking Tool.
Questions can be directed by email to COVIDTracker@calhospital.org with questions.
