The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has passed a bill (S-3678) that would establish the Department of Health and Human Services as the primary federal agency
for coordinating the response to public health and medical emergencies. The bill would authorize funding for certain activities that would support the readiness of the public
health system to address those emergencies.
It also would authorize funding for information technology and require HHS to expand on disease detection efforts to develop–
within two years of enactment–an electronic network between levels of government that is interoperable and includes standardized data and information. It also would authorize
grants to states to implement the electronic network and to certain other entities to purchase diagnostic equipment for clinical analysis.
The bill also would: provide grants to encourage individuals to work in needed public health areas; reauthorize a program to
improve the capacity of medical facilities responding to public health emergencies; authorize new funding for expanding and training the public health workforce; require the Secretary of HHS to evaluate how federal assets could aid in supporting surge capacity; and authorize the Secretary to waive certain
hospital requirements when developing pandemic flu plans.
