HHS to electronically collect hospital bed data for H1N1 flu season
By Mary Mosquera
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Health and Human Services Department needs updates on a continuous basis on the number of available hospital beds available during the H1N1 flu season starting in the fall.
HHS consequently wants to collect data electronically through an online system called HAvBED, which it already uses in an emergency preparedness program to determine the bed capacity of the nation’s 6,000 hospitals.
During the H1N1 response earlier this year, HHS did not have an adequate understanding of the severity of the outbreak or the resources needed to respond to the crisis, such as ventilators and intensive care unit beds, HHS said in a notice in the Aug. 20 Federal Register.
A number of countries in the southern hemisphere have recently experienced a surge in seriously ill patients, leading U.S. federal health officials to anticipate a similar situation here in the next few months.
The National Hospital Preparedness Program has 62 agreements with all the states and territories to improve surge capacity and prepare hospitals and communities for public health emergencies. HHS said it will gather the data through the HAvBED system weekly for six months.
