Intent of Evaluation and Performance Measurement

For Hospital Preparedness Program Cooperative Agreement COVID-19 Supplemental Funding

The $158,500,000 emergency supplemental funding provided by Congress to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s (ASPR) Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) Cooperative Agreement supports the urgent preparedness and response needs of health care facilities and organizations, including:

• Health care coalitions
• Emergency medical services (EMS)/pre-hospital care (includes 911 and public safety answering points)
• State/jurisdiction Special Pathogen Treatment Centers (SPTCs)
• Other health care facilities/organizations¹

The recipients of this funding are the 62 HPP cooperative agreement recipients who execute sub-awards to support the aforementioned entity types. The goal of the supplemental funding is to adequately and rapidly distribute funds to health care systems and facilities to achieve the preparedness and response capabilities needed for COVID-19. This includes preparing health care systems and facilities to safely and successfully identify, isolate, assess, transport, and treat patients with COVID-19 or persons under investigation (PUIs) for COVID-19, as well as to prepare health care systems and facilities for future special pathogen disease outbreaks. ASPR awarded this funding to the 62 recipients in all 50 states, U.S. territories, Washington, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles County, New York City, and freely associated states. Recipients will determine how to adequately distribute funds to health care systems, facilities, and organizations so they can achieve the necessary COVID-19 preparedness and response capabilities.

The purpose of the Hospital Preparedness Program Cooperative Agreement COVID-19 Supplemental Funding performance measures is to document the use of funding and to demonstrate the operational outcomes that were achieved as a result of this funding. The measures will also provide information on funding effectiveness and identify opportunities and challenges within funded activities. Consistent with the full scope of applicable grant regulations (45 CFR Part 75) and the purpose of this award, recipients and sub-recipients shall provide ASPR with access to COVID-19 data pertinent to the award. This cooperative agreement is likely to generate positive secondary and tertiary effects for the entire health care system and may advance response to outbreaks of other special pathogens. While initial data collection and measurement will apply to COVID-19 response, in the future, these measures could be used to evaluate response to outbreaks of other special pathogens, especially highly infectious pathogens.

The remainder of this document describes the performance measures ASPR will use to understand the programmatic outcomes of the funding distributed through the Hospital Preparedness Program Cooperative Agreement COVID-19 Supplemental Funding. Where measures ask recipients and their sub-recipients to provide data regarding ‘ASPR-funded’ activities, these activities include those 1) fully-funded by Hospital Preparedness Program Cooperative Agreement COVID-19 Supplemental Funding; 2) partially-funded by this funding and by the facility or organization; and/or 3) supported by allowable staff positions fully- or partially-funded by the funding. Activities or supplies/materials funded by the Hospital Preparedness Program Cooperative Agreement COVID-19 Supplemental Funding include those that have been or will be retroactively compensated. Recipients may request retroactive compensation for health care coalitions (HCCs) and health care facilities, including state/jurisdiction special pathogen treatment centers for any of the activities described herein that were conducted as part of COVID-19 response beginning January 20, 2020. Recipients must request retroactive compensation at the time of the budget submission. The request should include the following information:

• Time period;
• Line item budget for the period; and
• Narrative description of the COVID-19 preparedness activities

All performance measures will be submitted by recipients to ASPR within 90 days of the end of the Hospital Preparedness Program performance period (June 30). It is not an expectation that every funded recipient and sub-recipient will take part in every activity listed in this document. We strongly urge recipient collaboration with sub-recipients to ensure accurate reporting. Any state or jurisdiction special pathogen treatment center² that accepted funds through the funding opportunity for health care system preparedness for Ebola and other novel, highly pathogenic diseases (to include COVID-19) must assure that preparedness activities under this award are not conducted in a manner to restrict health care services based on an individual’s home jurisdiction and that any facilities that received funds under this award may not restrict services based on an individual’s home jurisdiction.

¹ The terms and conditions for this cooperative agreement were intentionally worded broadly to provide flexibility to recipients. “Other health care facilities/organizations” may include but are not limited to: support services (pharmacy, blood bank, medical supply chain), home and residential care (includes long-term care, home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, etc.), acute care hospitals, and hospital systems. Recipients are permitted and encouraged to provide sub-awards to facilities outside their membership..

² As part of the Regional Treatment Network for Ebola and Other Special Pathogens, ASPR funded state and jurisdiction Ebola treatment centers. These centers are staffed, equipped, and have been assessed to have current capabilities, training, and resources to provide the complex treatment necessary to care for a person with Ebola and other special pathogens while minimizing risk to health care workers.