Agency Work Shifts to Fit Pandemic Response
The coronavirus pandemic has required all hands to be on deck in the federal government. To match the president’s call for a whole of government response, federal agencies are shifting strategies and tweaking systems to better serve the American people.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has modified an existing contract to allow the department to purchase 8,000 ventilators from four vendors worth as much $84 million, according to reports from NextGov. Ventilators have been in significant demand, and short supply, since the pandemic began. The contract switch will allow the DoD to acquire an initial shipment of 1,400 ventilators with delivery by early May. The ventilators are set to be distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) upon their arrival.
In total, the DoD “has processed several hundred contracts and orders related to COVID activities, including everything ranging from transportation, communication to medical supplies,” according to Department of Defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Mike Andrews.
Lt. Col. Andrews also noted that the Defense Logistics Agency has purchased $2 million worth of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies and nearly 1 million gallons of fuel, food, and repair components for the USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy hospital ships that will assist New York City and Los Angeles. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency helped deliver 3 million COVID-19 test kit swabs nationwide.
On Monday, The Center for Medicaid and Medicare Service (CMMS) announced the expansion of telehealth services offered to Medicare and Medicaid patients. The announcement was part of a larger push for new regulatory changes during the pandemic. The center boasts 80 new telehealth services for patients.
“Today, we're announcing that we're going to go even further and we're going to be paying doctors to make phone calls with their patients and provide care over the phone,” CMMS Administrator Seema Verma announced at a COVID-19 Task Force press briefing Monday afternoon. “And we're getting rid of long-standing barriers to telehealth in the Medicare program, allowing emergency rooms to use telehealth and eliminating requirements that some visits be provided face-to-face.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has also sought ways to increase public access to information on air travel restrictions. The FAA introduced a Google heat map Monday that tracks FAA stations impacted by the coronavirus response. The administration also prepared guidance for state, local, and tribal governments to use when determining appropriate travel restrictions.
